The Microsoft press release announcing its plans for Web-based online versions of Windows and Microsoft Office. As I mentioned last post, Windows Live is already up in beta. Office Live is scheduled for beta release in early 2006.
Now, Windows Live looked really, really familiar to me; and not just because of its uncanny similarity to the Google personalized home page. Today it finally hit me: it’s start.com! Weirdly enough, start.com supports Firefox already while live.com doesn’t yet. (Here’s Scott Isaacs’ September 9th blog post about browser support in start.com.)
The only serious annoyance I’ve come across so far is this: when I go to sign up for the Windows Live Mail beta, I get this:
To sign up:
Please give us your MSN Hotmail e-mail address, and we’ll keep you in the loop about the latest news. We’ll use your e-mail address only for this beta and related updates.
But…but I don’t have a Hotmail account. I don’t want a Hotmail account. I have a Passport account that uses my work e-mail address, but it won’t accept that. Why on earth not?
Of course, what would really rock is if users could access whatever Web mailbox they wanted from Windows Live. Ditto the Google home page.
Wade Rockett 