Up to 40 different networks and services will be integrated into the new Windows Live platform that Microsoft wants to become the entry point to the Internet from which the user can control their different email accounts and at the same time know the latest activities and comments from his friends in Twitter or Facebook.
Microsoft's new strategy on the Internet is one of the most obvious of these openings that the company announced less than a year ago when it committed itself publicly to share programming interfaces and code with its competition. The announcement, whose draft was not understood by perhaps being too technical, was the seed from which has emerged the third generation of Windows Live, which reflects the new approach to Microsoft when it comes to understanding the business of software.
Until very recently it was unthinkable that a user to communicate with Windows Messenger is one of Yahoo, and MSN whole strategy was designed so that anyone leaving the online services Microsoft: be sought in your browser, look at videos or publish Soapbox his blog in Spaces.
The announcement is a turning point total since it means giving access to its platform services that compete directly with Microsoft. For example, all texts that are typed and models from the text editor for Windows blog Writer blogs may be published directly into Wordpress, a platform that competes with MSN Spaces, or may seek images in the new photo editor for Windows Live and publish them directly from that program to Flickr, the photo service from Yahoo, or Picasa, Google.
"We are sharing APIs (programming interfaces) and working with all kinds services on the Internet. We currently have 29 partners who are already integrated with Windows Live, and 11 more who are working on it," said Inigo Asiain, director of Marketing Services Online Microsoft, who recalls that the Windows Live services have 460 million users worldwide.
"Eight of every 10 Internet users are using any of the Windows Live services in Spain, where we have 14 million users of Messenger. We are one of the largest online communities and now we're going to incorporate new social elements," says Juan Carlos Fernandez, director General Consumption of Microsoft Ibérica.
The new Windows Live strategy incorporates a variety of new services and new features, which will be incorporated into the web of gradually in coming months until February. Here, we highlight some of the most significant changes:
Integration with social networks
The new home page for Windows Live has changed design and incorporates the bar where developments are going to be able to see the latest updates from our contacts in the various social networks: their status changes, the latest photos that have published or comments made.
This bar is also integrated into the new Messenger, which lets see what happens with Finally contact and communicate with them directly.
Any mail accounts in one click
In this line of integration with other new services, new home page also provides access to various e-mail accounts that take on the Internet, either Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. To incorporate a new account just to put the user name and password, which will be asked once, and thereafter, will be answering messages, forward or create new ones, all from the Windows Live page regardless of the service being used.
In addition, the new Hotmail has been redesigned and simplified. Microsoft says that the system is now much faster when it comes to handle it and be able to change folders from a mailbox to another.
Own social network
My profile is another major developments where every user will be able to bring together all its activity in the various social networks, but at the same time incorporates features that allow you to create a space within Live, reminiscent in many respects to Facebook: it has a wall on which to write messages and every aspect that will change the Internet user is automatically communicated to all your contacts.
"We're not trying to convince anyone to leave their social networks, rather we want to be a gateway from which you can monitor your entire online activity and your contacts via Live," says Asiain.
A new tab called People absolutely will also manage all the contacts that each user has in its various pages and services.
Bulk mailing of photos
In addition to these services entirely new, Microsoft is incorporating features that can be really useful.
One of the noteworthy is the ability to attach as many pictures as you want in a clog e-mail without the recipient's mailbox. The system of sending photos makes the recipient receives a miniature copies of the images, and the photographs are real stored on a server. The receiver will select the image you really want to store in their original size and with only pincharlas will be downloaded to your desktop, while the unused e-mail service.
Emoticons real
The new client incorporates truly innovative actions such as news commentary bar or a system to communicate with groups of up to 20 contacts to share photos or links on a website linked, but clearly, what will be most used is the new system emoticons.
The new Messenger lets you click the smiley classic showing a smiling face, or Llorona guiñando one eye and replaced by a photo of the user and even a video. Thus when the user accompanies his message with one of these little pictures, photo identification will be replaced by the image captured for every occasion.
These are just some of the novelties of the most significant update Microsoft has ever done for their services online. |
