I know Windows Live pretty well to be honest. I’ve been there from the very beginning – the Live Sessions in London, the Live Dinner a few months later, I’ve been to conferences and talked with other influentials about where MSN is going and what Windows Live means to the public – even part of the team on the Windows Live services at Microsoft. But over the last few weeks I’ve really been thinking about Live and what it is, and unfortunately a few home truths hit me.

What is Windows Live?

Unfortunately this question is asked far too much – people still don’t really know what Windows Live is. They get the idea it’s something from Microsoft hence the Windows title, but other than that it’s bewildering. The Windows Live Ideas page (branching off from the homepage for pre-released Live software) has this:

“Windows Live™ is a new set of Internet software and services designed to put you in control of the information, relationships and interests you care about. Windows Live will make it easier for you to connect with people, and to quickly find the information you need, more safely and securely, whether you’re on your PC or on the go. And it’s evolving every day—with your feedback, it will just keep getting better.”

I say that it’s a near-replacement for MSN. Many technical evangelists say that it’s not a replacement – I’m partly inside and I say that to some degree it really is. MSN has been around for many years now (over 11 years at least and counting) and it’s starting to get old and decrepit. To tie in with the release of Windows Vista, most of the services turned “Live” to give them a breath of fresh air, some new graphics and new features and a whole load of new advertisement prospects. I do believe that Windows Live is a bridge between the operating system and the Internet and in a few months time, a bridge between Windows Vista and the Internet which is brilliant actually. New users will have all these different software’s available to play with and to make their life easier in the form of Windows Live.

Where MSN stands in all this

MSN is still staying around. Just because some of the old MSN services have been bumped up to a Windows Live product doesn’t mean they all are – some still speculate at which existing products will be bumped up and which will be bumped off, but that’s not too important now. MSN has a huge directory of services available called the MSN Directory which hasn’t been updated for a long while since Messenger and Spaces are in there under the MSN title and are even linked into the respected msn.com address. However a good 80% of these services will still be MSN as they aren’t services being provided, more rather portal pages and information. It’s hard to tell which services will be ported over, but expect new things from MSN such as the Soapbox beta which enables users to upload and share their media with other people; but also expect new things to come out of Windows Live such as the OneCare brands.

Who uses Windows Live?

“Live” seems to be the big thing coming out from Microsoft and there are many different angles to see it from. Windows Live is created and aimed at the general public but not businesses, unlike Office Live which is aimed at small businesses trying to get out there in the online world to promote them and to increase sales. Xbox Live is designed for gamers who want to play online with others and share statistics and information on games and Zune Live is for those wanting to buy music and check out the digital music scene. That’s all good and well and all, however people simply don’t know enough about Windows Live.

The core Windows Live services are Live.com, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live OneCare and Windows Live Spaces – that’s a fair comment to make and they’re probably the most used services. If we take these one by one: MSN Messenger was used by around 10 million users in the UK which is 1 in 6 people. On one sunny June 19^th of this year, Windows Live Messenger was unleashed. From that point on it was rather quiet; there weren’t any automatic upgrades, there certainly was a huge song and dance about it seeing as this was the first major Windows Live release but not many people knew about it.

The client was finished and released but the backend stuff was far from finished. For some unknown reason the launch went ahead, knowing full well that the servers wouldn’t manage and they didn’t. Connection problems, sign-in problems, message sending failures it was absolutely appalling, many people asked if this was meant to happen and many asked whether this will be what the rest of the Windows Live services will be like. Thankfully no less than two months later it was fixed with a new build of the client being released and all the issues being fixed and sorted out (even the Messenger team in Redmond admitted that something wasn’t right on their blog) – the day that Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812 was rolled out was the day that Windows Live really started.

Windows Live Mail is being used by hundreds of thousands, even running into the millions of users worldwide. Why? Because of a small green button which appeared in the millions of MSN Hotmail users’ inbox. If you exclude the Windows Live Ideas site, then the chances are without this little green button that a very, very small percentage of Hotmail users would have even known about the Mail beta. I honestly think that a lot of users will only realise that Hotmail has gone is when Windows Live Mail gets released to the web and replaces Hotmail for good. The chances are that this will cause some panic and confusion. No doubt once the switchover happens there will be a sudden rush of users to their once-called Hotmail accounts and they’ll see a new interface and be utterly flummoxed. Will the servers be able to handle it? The live.nl email addresses system failed within a couple of hours, Messenger crumbled when the new software was released, will this go the same way?

Windows Live OneCare – something which has turned the Windows Live services around and for the better. The OneCare application is a pleasure to use (although it does eat up memory on your computer – not as bad as some of the other solutions out there though), the service works well and it’s easy to use for even the most basic user. The Safety Scanner online also provides people with access to a web based, no-strings-attached version of the application which lets them perform most of the tasks that OneCare does but free of charge. The Family Safety beta isn’t doing too badly – the system works rather well and appears to be “foolproof” which is obvious a step in the right direction. Microsoft seem to be making a huge effort in making people safer online – with more and more users being on a constant broadband connection to the Internet which makes them more prone to attacks than those who dial-up to a narrowband or indeed a broadband connection. All this seems to be coming around for Windows Vista which is said to be the most secure operating system from Microsoft to date, so with all these efforts it’s hard to tell whether they wish to make Vista more secure or are late in rolling out these security features to those who use Windows XP. Nevertheless, it’s a very important step to be taken and they are doing excellently to make users safer online and children safer using the World Wide Web.

Windows Live Spaces has done amazingly well for itself. As far as I can see, it’s  the biggest success that Microsoft has created except for the Windows operating system. I was speaking to another employee in late August about the success of Spaces and it literally came down to the one button in MSN Messenger 7.0. There were very little advertisements at the time, very little marketing done, but with a brand new version of the Messenger client which was used by millions of users worldwide, people noticed this new button in their main conversation window saying “My Space”. All it took was the curiosity to click on it, make a Space and check out what you can do with it. A year later when Windows Live Spaces was rolled out, the numbers had reached over 6 million users in the UK and over 120 million users worldwide.

Windows Live.com - an incredibly well built website which has taken a long time to really start. But what’s the point? Google’s homepage is a search box, and Microsoft have finally realised the potential behind this simple thing. Keep it simple, and they’ve finally followed suit. The search box on Live.com is all it’s about - trying to entice people away from Google’s personalised homepage with it’s own set of gadgets, widgets and feeds and whatnot. It’ll be interesting where this one leads, as Live.com has full compatibility with most of the G0ogle gadgets but it takes longer to load. I don’t know whether it’ll be a hit or a flop - hopefully it won’t be a flop because I don’t think that Microsoft could take such a blow to one of it’s core services. It’s like everyone deciding to use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office.

The big shake-up

Since Steve Berkowitz joined Microsoft, things around Live have changed a lot. Without going into pointless detail, because of him things haven’t been released on time and things have been slow in terms of development. He screwed up Ask.com and now he’s come to screw Windows Live up. He was even considering dropping the “Windows” part of “Windows Live”. Live on it’s own wouldn’t sound as good as Windows Live because you know there’s an association between the operating system and the web based services.

Even though there are many different areas of Microsoft being focused on, for the launch of Windows Vista comes the Live suite of products - the whole point of Live is to bring the operating system and the Internet closer and to make the user’s life easier. But with all this reshuffling going on, people moving from department to department, other services taking literally years to take off and other hidden (and sometimes less important) Live services being rolled out quietly, this is the last thing the suite of products needs. A big bang and a big hello for each service, being rolled out at once to the public.

Part 2 coming soon