Windows-LiveThere has been a lot of announcements recently from a lot of web and software based companies, with Microsoft being the latest. Over the past year, Microsoft has been quietly releasing parts of their new online products based on the live brand but today they rolled out the whole "shebang". Introducing Windows live, Microsoft’s online suite of services and apps that you can use to make your life better if you choose to use Microsoft products.

As you all know, they have been making changes to the Web email client (Hotmail / MSN mail). It has a new slicker looking interface but with todays announcement, they take that a step further. Now you can sign up for the new Windows live mail, with an @live email address. If you already have a Hotmail or MSN email address, you can transfer that over to Windows live mail or you can keep the older mail and still use the service. Along with the new mail branding, they have also released an Windows Live mail App that you can download and use to retrieve your Live mail. It also works for retrieving Yahoo (if you have Yahoo plus) and Gmail. I messed around with it for a few minutes and it reminds me of an updated outlook express,  I  have never fired up the Windows Vista mail App but it may just be a replacement, or modeled after that. But just taking a quick look, it seems like it will be a decent quick POP3 mail App for those of you that like to use that over web based email.

Other than the Windows live Mail, there are more things that are listed on the Overview page  available for download. Yesterday I reinstalled Windows Vista on my notebook (more on that later) and I went over to the Google app page to get the toolbar. When I went to Microsoft’s Windows live overview to see what was up, it reminded me a lot of the Google App page I just visited. Other software that is listed on the page include:

  • Windows Live Photo  Gallery - I downloaded this and loaded it up. It kind of looks like Picasa (which I think is a pretty cool App). It looks like something worth checking out if you are into cataloging or managing Photo’s
  • Windows Live Writer - This is basically a rich text editor that can be used to write blog post for various Blogging platforms. Of coarse it supports Microsoft’s Spaces platform but to me it isnt worth much unless it supports Wordpress. Guess what, it does support Wordpress. I downloaded this App and set it up with my Wordpress blog which was pretty easy. Was going to write this blog post using the app but changed my mind at the last minute. It looks like it has a lot of features as far as what you can insert into a blog post, including pictures, video, and maps.
  • Windows live messenger
  • Windows Live Toolbar - Who uses anything other than Google’s toolbar nowadays, Maybe I’ll load it up to see what it is about but I didn’t bother getting it as of yet.

Those are the downloadable Apps that are included with the package. You have the choice of which of these you download so you don’t have to worry about being stuck with the live toolbar if all you want is the Photo app.

Other than the downloadable stuff, there is also the web based stuff including Hotmail, Windows Live events, Spaces etc.

Overall, it looks like Microsoft is trying to make moves as far as their online services presence. How these software options will work out, I still am a bit skeptical but Im willing to try some of them out.