So Mike Arrington and several others today blogged about the Windows Live announcement yesterday. Way back in 1997, there was something called Internet Explorer 4 that was just being finished, with a little feature called Active Desktop, that was, slightly ahead of its time. Most people didn't have the bandwidth to adopt it then, I personally quite liked it, and it goes down in my book as
one of the most innovative things ever to come out of Microsoft. Unfortunately, it was not a market success, despite the fact that some of the smartest people I know (Hadi Partovi, Mark Hammond, several others) were working on it. I see Windows Live, heck even RSS to a degree, is almost like a new implementation of the vision that old IE4 team had back in 1997. Talk about ahead of its time. Who says Microsoft doesn't innovate? They started as a platform and programming tools company, and always have shined in that arena.
Windows Live says something very politely: We're still a platform company. And, we're going to make a damn good one!
I am personally quite pleased to see that
Microsoft found its mojo again!
I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on Windows Live as an extension to the old Active Desktop dream!