Redmond Pie » Windows Live

Is Apple About To Nail Microsoft’s ‘Software + Services’ Vision With iCloud?

Goncalo Ribeiro — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:12:40 +0000

If you’ve watched Microsoft concept videos over the years, you probably know how fond the company is of the idea of "Software Plus Services". Microsoft has always painted it as the ability to preserve local software, while still have it interact with online services in real time. While Microsoft has made quite a few achievements in that area in the past few years, isn’t Apple about to nail it with iCloud?

Take the 4-year-old concept video below as an example. It’s one of the many concepts Microsoft came up with around that time in order to show off "Software Plus Services" paradigms:

Needless to say that no company has managed to achieve that amount of interoperability between different devices, but 4 years later, Apple might be the closest to the finish line. Out of many of the features of iCloud, take "Documents in the Cloud" for example: this feature lets users sync documents across multiple devices on the fly, which looks really close to what’s showcased on Microsoft’s demo video.

Another paradigm often discussed by Microsoft has been the ability to prevent data loss, even if one particular device is damaged, since all files are always one login away, on any device. Apple seems to have achieved that with live backups of critical data such as Apps and Contacts, so you won’t lose everything if your iPad ever gets run over by a bulldozer:

I could go on for a few more hours on how Apple’s services have brought Microsoft’s concepts to reality, but I think you got the point: while Microsoft spent the last 4 years mostly reorganizing, restructuring and rebuilding its Cloud offerings, Apple’s clear focus has helped bring much of Microsoft’s vision to fruition.

I’m in no way suggesting that all of Microsoft’s online endeavors have failed, or that all of Apple’s online products have succeeded (I was the first to write off MobileMe and Ping when they were introduced), but iCloud seems to offer enough advantages for average users to care to sign up for the service and take an honest look at it.

Microsoft currently offers many cloud services, such as Windows Azure, which happens to be a lot more elaborate than iCloud. Despite the huge leverage it provides developers and IT professionals, its benefits haven’t trickled down to customers just yet. Windows Live is the closest Microsoft owns to iCloud, yet it doesn’t allow the amount of interoperability between devices iCloud offers, not even close.

The original Microsoft Live Mesh’s ‘Live Desktop’ concept had a lot of promise, but unfortunately, the groups working on it failed to deliver it on time, which resulted in product becoming uninteresting over time.

Competition in the technology world involves a lot of "catching up", and we’ll surely see that on Microsoft’s side. Leaked builds of Windows 8 show that logging in will now be possible through e-mail addresses, and while we don’t yet know to which extent that will be used to integrate with online services, many expect strong integration. We might even see new Windows Live services before that.

Who knows, maybe in a year iCloud will be nothing more than a link on Apple’s website a few hundred people will visit everyday. Yet, I can’t help but notice the similarities between Apple’s product and Microsoft’s concepts.

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Windows Live Essentials 2011 Wave 4 Beta Now Available for Download

Uzair Ghani — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:22:26 +0000

It’s been a long time since Microsoft has had a major update for their Windows Live Essentials suite, but now it looks like we don’t have to wait anymore! Microsoft has just made the beta version of the new Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 available for public download. This release has tons of new features and updates over any of the previous releases we have seen.

Windows Live Essentials is basically a suite of apps, which consists of all the necessary software from Microsoft to let you do some creative work on Windows in no time, and for free!

We’ve designed Essentials to connect your Windows experience to the web services you already use – not just the ones from Microsoft. The new betas of Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger connect to photo and video sharing (SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, SmugMug), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin), email (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), blogging (Spaces, WordPress, Blogger), and document productivity (Office Web Apps) services. And the new Windows Live Sync keeps your files synchronized across multiple PCs and in the cloud. You can even directly access your PC over the web with Sync’s new remote desktop feature.

People like to get creative on their PCs as much as they like seeing what everyone else has been up to. Whether it’s Retouch, Panoramic Stitch, or Photo Fuse in Photo Gallery, Auto Movie in Movie Maker, or photo email in the new Windows Live Mail, we think you’ll be excited by the new additions to Essentials that make advanced tasks, well, easy. If you haven’t yet tried Photo Fuse to merge together the best of several photos, it’s a lot of fun.

All the above mentioned tools included in the new Windows Live Essentials beta have got major updates, with most of them getting “Ribbon/Fluent UI” support. The new Photo Gallery with Photo Fuse in my opinion is the best improvement, and is equally good, if not better than its Mac counterpart iPhoto (part of iLife suite). Integration of posting your pictures and videos to different communities like Facebook and YouTube (and others) is by far the best improvement we’ve seen in Windows Live Essentials.

For more on Windows Live Essentials, check out our detailed preview posted here. Available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 only, the all new Windows Live Essentials (2011 Wave 4) can be downloaded from here.

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Windows Live Messenger for iPhone Now Available for Download !

Taimur Asad — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:34:55 +0000

Microsoft has finally released the official iPhone app of the world’s largest instant-messaging network (Windows Live Messenger) right for your iPhone and iPod touch. It features all the standard Windows Live stuff like photo sharing, chat and social stream from Windows Live Home.

iTunes description is as follows.

Windows Live Messenger for iPhone and iPod Touch is the best way to connect with the people that matter most and keep up with the things they are doing across the web. Use your iPhone to instant message your friends list, view and comment on your friends’ photos and status updates from Windows Live, Facebook, and MySpace, and at a glance, see what your Messenger friends are sharing from Flickr, YouTube, and many other social and photo sharing sites. Make sure to visit http://profile.live.com/Services today and setup Windows Live to bring in your social networks. Messenger is simply the best way to connect with your closest friends.

Chat:
Instant message with your Windows Live Messenger and Y! Messenger contacts on the go so you’re always connected to the people that matter most. You can even receive IM notifications when your app is closed so you never miss a message.

Social:
Windows Live Messenger gives you one place to view the updates your Messenger friends are sharing from social networks like Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and more, helping you cut through the clutter on the go.

Photos:
Upload photos right from your phone to share your favorite moments with the people that matter most. Create albums, add captions, and let your friends and family comment on your photos.

Hotmail:
Access your Hotmail account without leaving the app to read, reply to, and compose emails. Get email notifications within the application so you know when you have new messages.

Yea.. and it works on iOS 4 too!

Windows Live Messenger for iPhone is the fourth app by the Redmond based software giant for the most popular mobile platform (i.e. iOS). The three other apps are: Seadragon Mobile, Microsoft Tag and Bing for iPhone.

Windows Live Messenger for iPhone and iPod touch is available for free on the iTunes App Store. You can download it via the link given below.

Download Windows Live Messenger for iPhone

Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone and iPad. [hat tip manan via TheNextWeb]

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Microsoft Brings Exchange ActiveSync Support to Hotmail at Long Last

Uzair Ghani — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:16:43 +0000

This one was due for a very very long time. Hotmail (aka Windows Live Hotmail) users can now push their email straight to any phone like iPhone, Android or Windows Phone as long as they have option to support Microsoft Exchange.

However it is to be noted that Microsoft hasn’t officially released this feature yet, but it is up and running for most Hotmail users out there, and it is not limited to the new Windows Live Wave 4 rollout of Hotmail. With Exchange ActiveSync, you can push and sync your Hotmail email, Windows Live Contacts, and Windows Live Calendar straight to your handset.

I have tested it and its been working for me since yesterday, but not on all of my Hotmail accounts. I have set (the working account) it up on my iPhone (running iOS 4) and its been running flawlessly so far. And there is no reason why it wouldn’t work equally good on my Android and Windows phone. The settings are as follows.

Email: yourmail@live.com or yourmail@hotmail.com
Server Address: m.hotmail.com
SSL: Enabled
Username: yourmail@live.com
Password: password
Domain: (Leave it Blank)

Give it a go and let us know if it works for you. Microsoft will officially release Exchange ActiveSync support for Hotmail later this year. [via LiveSide]

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New Windows Live Essentials with Photo Fuse Promises to One-up its Mac Counterpart iLife

Uzair Ghani — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:16:48 +0000

Microsoft has been rolling out updates for Windows Live services to provide better and new functionality over any of the previous versions. Hotmail’s new makeover is a huge leap to take on different email services, and now Microsoft is taking that even further with their new Windows Live Essentials suite.

Windows Live Essentials, as also evident by it’s name, is the most essential software that you need right after Windows is installed to get some serious creativity out of it. It includes the well known Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Sync and Family Safety. All these apps get you working on the most essential tasks that you might be facing every day in no time. The most prominent features of the new update are:

Connecting Windows 7 to the cloud
The all new Windows Live Photo Gallery

Windows 7 and the Cloud

With Windows 7, Microsoft realized the important of connecting cloud services with Windows and so you can now see different online services and networks such as SkyDrive, Facebook, Flickr, Hotmail, Gmail/Yahoo and WordPress integrated right into various different apps so that you can share it with your friends, family and co-workers within no time. And this is not just it, there’s still a lot more which is still to come.

The all new Windows Live Photo Gallery

Microsoft has really made a strong attempt to hit on iLife’s iPhoto app with the new Windows Live Photo Gallery and Photo Fuse. You can now organize your photos much easier and faster than ever before. With just a few clicks, all your photos are organized with proper tags, location and with the new facial recognition technology, Photo Gallery can easily show you all the photos of a particular person regardless of the albums they are in. And yes, it’s a proper face detection technology and does not work on a hit and trial basis by just merely guessing who the person is. Yes we’re pointing at iPhoto on this one.

The key features of the new Windows Live Photo Gallery are:

Auto Image Adjust

With just one click, Windows Live Photo Gallery will adjust your picture to the best setting possible within no time.

Retouch

Scratches, Dents or even people! You can remove them from your pictures with ease. Pretty neat eh?

Photo Fuse

This is probably the most awesome feature which we we have been anticipating for a long long time. If there’s a person in your photo with his/hers eyes closed, Windows Live Photo Gallery with Photo Fuse has you covered! Using an awesome cutting-edge technology, it takes the best parts of different photos of the same scene and turns it into one marvelous shot.

Share your Photos to different Social Networks

You can now share your photos and even videos directly to different social networks with ease, which also supports tagging of photos and videos both. And that’s not all, if someone tags you in a photo on Facebook, and you have the same photo in your gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery will learn and tag the photo in your gallery as well!

Photo Email Messages

Have tons of photos but are too big to share? No problem. You can share your photos in a very presentable way with your friends and family via Windows Live SkyDrive without trashing the other person’s inbox limit. These pictures will stay on SkyDrive.

Windows Live Photo Gallery also has beautiful templates which you can use when sharing your photos via email.

Turn your photos into a slideshow in just a few clicks

Though we’ve seen this feature in Apple’s iLife, but Microsoft has also adapted this feature in the new Photo Gallery. Just with a few clicks you can make an awesome slideshow which you can share with your friends and family, and thanks to Movie Maker, you can publish your slideshow on your favorite social network, like Facebook, YouTube or even SkyDrive.

All this and more coming very soon…

With all these great features, I for one cant wait to get my hands on the new Windows Live Essentials. Microsoft has given “a few weeks” ETA. I cant wait, what about you? [via Windows Team Blog]

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Microsoft Reinvents Hotmail with Tons of Features to Seriously Take on Gmail

Uzair Ghani — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:52:06 +0000

Looks like Microsoft has really heard their users this time! This time they have really come up with some exciting new features which has really made Hotmail far more feature rich, and easier to use. Here are some of the most key changes that has been made to this latest version of Windows Live Hotmail.

Hotmail Highlights

Hotmail Highlights is the first page you’ll see when you sign into Hotmail. Updates like status messages, Facebook and Twitter updates, and even if someone just changed their display picture will be displayed here as news feed. While it may be useful for many, some of you may who like to crash straight into their mail inbox will find it annoying.

Sweep Email

Unlike Gmail’s filtering (labels), sweep is really clean and simple. It doesn’t treat Email as spam, but rather it is a simple way of organizing which mail you would like to receive in your inbox, and which ones would you like to go in a separate folder.

Send Files as Large as 10GB

Have something which is too large to send? Hotmail now has an answer to that! You can now send attachments up to 10GB in size! Take that Google! This limit is huge compared to Gmail’s tiny limit of 25MB, which at one time was considered as monster. Hotmail uploads your huge attachments to SkyDrive from where your files can be accessed by other users.

IM straight from your Inbox

Yes, it’s finally here now! Though Gmail had this feature for quite some time now, but Microsoft has done a terrific job embedding this feature right into Hotmail. It features tabbed conversations of your contacts from Windows Live Messenger.

Share and Work on Office Docs with Others

This is probably the best feature of the new Hotmail so far! You can now view or edit Office Documents right from your inbox and forward them to anyone! How cool is that? No need to install Office on your computer just to make minor changes on a certain document. View and edit your documents right from Hotmail.

Hotmail for iPhone

Setting up Hotmail on your iPhone will now be a breeze! All your contacts, calendar items and Mail will be available right on your fingertips. The interface is very easy to understand and get around with, and you can view all your conversations in a threaded form, making it easier to follow on to a conversation. And there is no reason why such a functionality will not be built right into Windows Phone 7, and the later for Android phones.

These are some of the features which were the most prominent in this new “Wave 4” Hotmail upgrade. You can check out the complete list of new features, along with video demos at Windows Live Preview’s website. Also let us know what you think about all these new features compared to other Email services like Gmail and Yahoo.

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Windows Live Messenger for iPhone – First Look !

Taimur Asad — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:46:46 +0000

Microsoft is set to bring the largest instant-messaging network to the iPhone platform. Neowin has grabbed exclusive screenshots of an early build of Windows Live Messenger for iPhone, which will be released in June as part of Windows Live Wave 4 launch.

The app is said to feature all the standard features like photo sharing, chat and social stream from Windows Live Home. Microsoft will also announce the next-gen Windows Live Messenger tomorrow. Limited beta of WLM 2010 will take place some time next month. Public availability wont take place anytime before June this year.

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Windows Live App with Bing for Windows Phone

Taimur Asad — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:24:56 +0000

Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Live for Windows phones running Windows Mobile Professional and Standard operating systems. This new version 10.7.0061.0500.2000 brings lots of new changes which includes new and improved UI which is finger friendly, Bing search bar, complete integration of Windows Live Home and lots more. I have installed it on my HTC HD2 and so far the experience has been quite satisfying.

Here is a quick look at the Windows Live app for Windows phone with screenshots.

New icon for Messenger which matches with the latest version of desktop version of WLM for Windows.

New and improved home screen with Windows Live Wave 3 header on top, links to Windows Live Home, Messenger, Hotmail and Bing search bar at the bottom.

Windows Live Home Integration: You can now check out what’s new within your Windows Live network, Browse photos with option to upload and comment, People and more..

UI of Messenger App has been tweaked slightly to make it more finger friendly.

This latest version of Windows Live app for Windows phones isn’t up on Windows Marketplace yet, you’ll either have to grab it directly from Microsoft Download Center here, or by browsing to http://wl.windowsmobile.com via web browser on your phone. [hat tip robmargel via twitter!]

UPDATE: As correctly pointed out by some of our readers, most of the new features highlighted above were first introduced in the last version of the app which was released back in November 2009. Except for a few bug fixes, this version is almost exactly similar to the previous version.

You can follow me on twitter or join our facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Windows phones.

Windows Live Messenger 2010 Screenshots

Taimur Asad — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:21:49 +0000

The successor to the current Wave 3 version of Windows Live Messenger has finally been unveiled. Neowin has got hold of exclusive screenshots which shows off the next version of Windows Live Messenger, that is going to be the part of Windows Live Wave 4 release. The most significant change in Windows Live Messenger 2010 is the added option for “social stream” updates, which is going to retrieve all your friends updates across various network activities like facebook, twitter and blog posts, that you have added in Windows Live.

Another welcome change is the added support for tabbed conversations in chat window. This functionality was requested for years and it seems like Microsoft has finally listened to the feedback provided by users by building this into the client app.

Most of the other features are still unknown and by the looks of the screenshots, UI still seems to be in the early stages of the development. This Messenger client along with other updates for the entire Windows Live Essentials suite is due for some time now. We can expect them to be out in the first half of 2010 as part of Wave 4 release of Windows Live at either Consumer Electronics Show in January, or at the MIX10 conference in March 2010.

You can follow me on twitter or join our facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Windows Live releases.

Windows Live Movie Maker 2009 for Windows 7

Taimur Asad — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:38:54 +0000

Windows Live Movie Maker 2009 version 14.0.8091.0730 is go! (finally). Microsoft has finally released a workable version of Windows Live Movie Maker for Windows 7, just in time before it hits the shelves in October. Windows Movie Maker along with Windows Mail and other apps of Vista’s era were dropped from Windows 7 in favor of these Windows Live branded apps which are now part of Windows Live Essentials package.

Windows Live Movie Maker application is designed to help you turn your videos and photos into movies, so you can share your favorite digital memories with family and friends, or the whole world if you want.

Home Tab on Scenic interface (aka Ribbon) with bunch on new options to choose from.

Yay! The option for YouTube uploading is now built right into Movie Maker!

Upload your videos to Youtube and Facebook. You can also add more services like SmugMug, Picasa, Pixelpipe and Multiply through these plugins.

Visual Effects with Live Preview!

Ability to output videos in full HD 1080p format.

Support for Windows 7 Jump Lists.

Ability to convert videos into 16:9 Widescreen ratio from Standard 4:3 and vice versa.

Windows Live Movie Maker is available for Windows 7 and Windows Vista only and can be downloaded from the links given below:

Download Windows Live Movie Maker 2009 v14.0.8091.0730
Download Windows Live Movie Maker 2009 v14.0.8091.0730 (offline installer)

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