SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog
Nov. 8, 2007 at 5:49pm
Windows Live - The Next Generation of Web Apps?
More like turn back the clock
So, I'm pretty much online all the time. I'm constantly looking for innovative applications and web services. I thought, "I'm going to have a look at what the 'big guys' are doing."
We all know Google is creating some pretty great web applications like their maps or spreadsheet apps. Seems decision makers at the big "G" have squarely set their sites on building innovative tools for web users. Surely, I thought, Microsoft has its plan and it's called Windows Live.
Once on the site I went no further in their online suite of products than this one word to know it will never work: Install. There was an "Install" button I was required to click after selecting the "web applications" I wanted to use. Not cool. One of the best things about creating web-based applications is that they can work for someone anywhere there's an internet connection and a browser -- no special downloads or programs required. Web apps should just work.
Now, this may seem like an overreaction, but when will MSFT start truly seeing that always requiring ties to a specific OS may not be where the future of software tech lies? As we become further disconnected from the chair-to-desk scenario and more reliant upon wireless, always on and always connected devices it seems the path ahead breaks from having to care which this is compatible with which that. If a company like Microsoft were to design a washing machine it very well might be unable to wash my Levi's but have no problem with Calvin Klein's.
As I've heard it said before, "Microsoft: the future is yesterday, the past tomorrow."
Read Mike's post about another recent Microsoft de-innovation.
Posted in Critiques, Odds 'n Ends, Review by Brian Forth
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