Microsoft's Web 2.0 strategy, Windows Live and Office Live, was covered as it was announced by Read/Write Web; pictures of the launch announcement event from Michael Arrington here, his real time notes here and his initial appreciation of it here; Russell Beattie's take here; a reflective piece by Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web. Michale Arrington has also posted here about Office Live:
Office Live is not an online version of Office. Office Live is a set of free, ad-supported productivity tools for businesses. … The core tools are a free non-microsoft domain name, website and up to 50 email accounts with 2 GB of storage each. … For a small company needing a informational website, it will be great. Given that the domain name, website building, hosting and email will all be free, this will be very attractive to a small business. For customers needing more, Microsoft will offer a suite of additional productivity applications - 22 in all were announced yesterday. They will also support third party applications - ADP’s payroll software was shown integrated into Office Live. A set of APIs will be available for third parties to add their application functionality into Office Live. Among the additional applications was an office document collaboration tool. You can share an office document real time with others, allowing them to view and edit it. Impressive.
Windows Live Ideas here:
Windows Live is based on one simple idea: that your online world gets better when everything works simply and effortlessly together. So all the things you care about online - your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, searching the Net - all come together in one place. Windows Live is a brand new Internet experience designed to put you in control. And this is just the beginning-you'll see many more new products in the coming months.
