Official Windows 7 Details Slip Through Microsoft's Fingers

There is no doubt that Microsoft has a tight grip on the next iteration of the Windows platform, but at the same time the Redmond giant manages to constantly let details slip through its fingers. While the company has only confirmed a development timetable scoped three years after the general availability (January 31) of Windows Vista, along with offering a quick look at MinWin, and promising to continue delivering both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the operating system, mum's the word on any other additional aspects of Vista's successor. But there are exceptions. Case in point: an internal Microsoft memo explaining the bridging of Windows 7 with Windows Live Wave 3.

Authored by Chris Jones - Corporate Vice President, Windows Live Experience Program Management, David Treadwell - Corporate Vice President, Live Platform Services and Brian Arbogast - Corporate Vice President, Mobile Services, the memo obtained by Mary Jo Foley is focused on the evolution of the Windows Live suite of services and products. An integral aspect of this evolution is represented by strong connections planned with Internet Explorer 8, MSN, Office 14 and Windows 7.

"We will work with the Windows 7 team and be a first and best developer of solutions on the Windows 7 platform. Our experiences will be designed so when they are connected to Windows 7 they seamlessly extend the Windows experience, and we will work to follow the Windows 7 style guidelines for applications. We will work with the Internet Explorer 8 team to make sure we deliver an experience that seamlessly extends the browser with our toolbar and other offerings," reads an excerpt of the memo.

Certainly, even with Windows Vista, Microsoft's strategy to deliver end users a seamless experience via the client plus Windows Live is already a reality. Applications such as Windows Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Photo Gallery, which are all default components of Vista, have been upgraded with items from the Windows Live Cloud. This trend is only bound to accentuate with Windows 7 and Windows Live Wave 3, the next generation of Windows Live.

"We have an opportunity to make it much easier for customers to ‘get started’ with Windows Live. Our goal should be to have customers log in, type their Live ID, and then they are automatically ’set up’ with Live. For new machines, we want Windows Live to come with the experience and will consider investments to make this experience easy. For customers who are upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, we will explore ways to make it easy for them to get Windows Live - particularly for photos, calendar, and movies where our applications complete the experience," it is added in the memo.

Microsoft started rolling out the first taste of Windows 7 at the end of 2007, via Milestone 1 Builds aimed at its close partners. Subsequently, the company continued to serve additional M1 releases, while moving toward M2 in the unconfirmed officially April-May 2008 time frame. One of the focuses of the Windows 7 - Windows Live Wave 3 strategy is to build scenarios that will be tailored specifically to Vista's successor. In this context, Microsoft is looking at a development direction that will permit it to benefit from and build directly on top of the hardware and software innovations planned for Windows 7. At the same time, Office 14, the successor of Office 2007 is by no means left out.

"Many customers will use Office and Office 14, and we will work to connect these customers to our experience. What happens when a customer sets up Windows Live and uses Office? It should be easy to use Windows Live Messenger and our communication services with the Outlook client. It should be easy to publish from Office applications to Live Folders," the memo states.

Additionally, Microsoft planned even at the end of 2007 to integrate Windows 7 with Live Mesh, recently launched into private Beta. Live Mesh is the Redmond company's cloud platform designed to permit a completely connected experience across different platforms, devices and services. With connectivity, collaboration and synchronization as the key aspects of Live Mesh, Windows 7 will bundle with the cloud platform and enable browsing, content building, management, and sharing with other platforms and across different devices.



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