14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's cloud operating system is connected by default with the Windows client. As a matter of fact, this is the company's vision for Windows Live - an online suite of products and services that would be synchronized, item by item with the infrastructure of the Windows operating system. And in this sense, the perspective fits perfectly into the Software plus Services business model. Unlike Google, a company focused exclusively online, and as such dependent on the Software as Service approach, Microsoft is tied to the success of its Windows client.
As of mid 2008, the Redmond company estimates that the install base for Windows will pass the 1 billion milestone. Microsoft is looking to leverage the mass of Windows users by automatically taking them online and transforming them into Windows Live audience. If all the cards are played right, and the Windows operating system is the top ace up Microsoft's sleeve, the Redmond company could just make Windows Live go neck and neck against Google for the online advertising dollars.
Still, another aspect of Windows Live, is that the set represents, just like Windows, a platform, and in this regard, Microsoft has opened it to developers. Windows Live, from the perspective of a cloud operating system, has the potential to kill the traditional Microsoft platforms, in concordance with the right context of Rich Internet Applications. The truth is that RIAs are yet to be a real alternative to desktop applications, but the direction of evolution clearly points to cloud operating systems becoming everyday facts of life. And both Google and Microsoft are on the right track building theirs.
The Redmond company even announced that it is focusing on Windows Live developers by integrating tools designed for its online suite of products and services into Visual Studio. According to Angus Logan, Microsoft technical program manager, the Windows Live toolbox kit is planned for integration with Visual Studio 2008, as a set of add-ons. But Visual Studio 2008 is not the only product targeted for the integration of the Windows Live toolkit, Microsoft is also looking to implement the add-ons into the Expression family of designing tools, as well as in Visual Studio 2005. The initial version of the Visual Studio Toolkit for Windows Live will be made available at Dev Connections show in Las Vegas and TechEd Europe, and by the looks of it, it will be in beta stage.