14 DAY TRIAL // Phil Holden, director of MSN Global Business and Product Management at MSN, hosted a Microsoft Windows Live Q&A Session last Thursday in the UK. He's a 14 year veteran of Microsoft. He offered his services to IBM before working for the Redmond software giant.
During the session, Phil discussed which direction Microsoft wants to take its Live service, along with what it's doing to get there. A big focus for Microsoft is that it needs to play catch-up in order to get to where some of its competition already is. This holds especially true for the effects of broadband and the constant consumer demands of communication. According to a Neowin article, Microsoft's Windows Live goals are to "integrate the core teams of Messenger, Hotmail and Search in order to form separate products that hold the same UI and consistency."
Microsoft plans a multi-front assault on the competition when it releases its Live services. One of the services called Live Contacts allows users "to choose to publish information to the world or keep it private amongst trusted individuals? The key part of Live Contacts is the fact it's available anywhere for anyone to view to ensure they always have the correct information about you. Live Contacts is available now as will be integrated into Messenger Contact cards etc."
There is also a heavy push toward the Windows Media Center application as well. According to the article, Microsoft's 'core' concerns were smartphones and pocket PC's. Live.com is also Microsoft's starting point rather than search.msn.com. During the session, Microsoft's Fremont was also demo'd. This is looking more and more to appeal toward the enterprises and not just consumers. Fremont also has RSS enabled and is built, like Windows Live Mail, on AJAX technologies. Phil "wasn't sure" whether Expo would support PayPal specifically but said Microsoft was not looking to build their own payment system for Expo.
The new VoIP Philips Messenger phone was also demo'd. With a green Messenger button built in, to get to your list of buddies, Microsoft aims to get people in touch with people at a much faster and personal rate. The phone will be in store for the launch of Windows Live and should be sub $100.
There are still a lot more things to get finalized for Windows Live, but it's looking like Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction. For more info, check out this latest article on Neowin. Full Firefox support accross all Windows Live applications is included.