So Microsoft has finally killed Windows Live:
http://www.liveside.net/2012/05/02/microsoft-says-goodbye-to-windows-live-building-windows-8-blog/
The online services will mostly live on, and some of the apps will live (some of them somewhat stripped down) in Windows 8.
As someone who's kept an eye on Windows Live for quite a while this is both a sad day and a, welcome day. It's sad because it's reminded me of all the excitement and the promise that came early in Windows Live's life but welcome because Windows Live quickly became a (mostly) neglected set of could-have-beens that never reached their potential. Microsoft was bold and they experimented but they have never felt committed to the platform. They release products showing promise, only to be overtaken by their competitors. It took them almost 5 years to release a desktop app for SkyDrive, one of the most obvious features, for goodness sake.
Sadly Microsoft don't seem to have learnt from one of the number one lessons of this fiasco: pick a brand and stick to it. It won't be number one overnight, but it'll never be number one if you change its name every few years. And yet we see this: http://www.liveside.net/2012/05/02/microsoft-advertising-rebrands-too-and-xbox-drops-inside-xbox-what-a-week-were-having/
Is it Bing? Is it Microsoft Advertising? Why does it depend who I am? So advertising is Bing? Or isn't it? Is Bing advertising? But isn't Bing search?
And what's up with the "Inside Xbox"? "We'll continue to provide content in some markets but not others". WTF? Did intertube passport control stop the EMEA content from being streamed to the US? Language differences aside the western world is essentially one market place. Customers in the US don't have a significantly different standard of living to those in the UK or France (except the Scandinavians who inhabit utopia...).
