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...). 

What concerns me in this article, though, is what's missing here. In particular, for me, there's no mention of Windows Live Writer. It will be a very sad day if this application dies due to this change.

11 minutes ago, JeremyJ wrote

 I think this is a smart move because in essence the seperate products are going away.  They are all going to be seamlessly built into Windows 8,  ...

what about the users who do not plan to upgrade for a while?

4 hours ago, GoddersUK wrote

So Microsoft has finally killed Windows Live:

Renaming != killing.

 The names we used to describe our products added to that complexity: we used "Windows Live" to refer to software for your PC (Windows Live Essentials), a suite of web-based services (Hotmail, SkyDrive, and Messenger), your account relationship with Microsoft (Windows Live ID), and a host of other offers. 

...

Windows 8 provides us with an opportunity to reimagine our approach to services and software and to design them to be a seamless part of the Windows experience, accessible in Windows desktop apps, Windows Metro style apps, standard web browsers, and on mobile devices. ...

it is all included when you turn on your PC for the first time. 

New names for stuff:

7 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@JeremyJ: So what you are saying is that they are killing the existing W7/Vista desktop clients and for those still using W7/Vista they'll have to use the web interfaces instead? Nor more Windows Live Mail? Messenger? Sky Drive desktop?

From the original article on the Building Windows 8 blog:

"For customers who use Windows 7, we have a set of Windows desktop apps, including Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Messenger, Family Safety, and our recently released SkyDrive for the Windows desktop."

Doesn't sound like they plan to move everybody to a web interface.

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Renaming != killing.

*snip*

New names for stuff:

Service	Windows 8	Windows Phone	Web/HTML 5 (live.com)	API (dev.  live.com)	Earlier Versions
Account	Microsoft account	Microsoft account	Account.live.com	OAUTH	Windows Live ID, Passport
Storage/  Docs	SkyDrive app, SkyDrive Desktop	SkyDrive app, Office app	SkyDrive.com	REST, JSON	FolderShare, Live Mesh, Windows Live Mesh
Email	Mail app	Mail app	Hotmail.com	EAS	Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express
Calendar	Calendar app	Calendar app	Calendar.live.com	EAS, REST	Windows Live Mail, Windows Calendar
Contacts	People app	People app	People.live.com	EAS, REST	Windows Contacts
Messaging	Messaging app	Messaging app	Integrated in Hotmail and SkyDrive	XMPP	MSN Messenger
Photos/ Videos	Photos app, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker	Photos app, Camera Roll	Photos.live.com	REST, JSON (via SkyDrive)	Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Movie Maker

Many of these services existed before and outside of live (LiveID/Accout = .netPassport; WL Hotmail = MSN Hotmail; Contacts = MSN Messenger integrated with Outlook Express' address book; Messaging = MSN Messenger). Windows Live is only the branding. I never intended to suggest Microsoft was killing (all) the services. (Although I found an enjoyable irony in using the term "Death" in this case...)

The fact is they ARE killing the Live brand. It's a substantial shift in concept - the purpose of the original Windows Live applications (later "Windows Live Essentials") was specifically to remove features such as email client, messaging client etc. out of the OS. Tying these back in with the OS is a paradigm shift significant enough to be considered the death of the concept of Windows Live.

I'm not even suggesting this must be a bad thing if Microsoft do it right this time. It would be a bad thing if they'd done Windows Live right, but they never did. 

52 minutes ago, Blue Ink wrote

*snip*

From the original article on the Building Windows 8 blog:

"For customers who use Windows 7, we have a set of Windows desktop apps, including Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Messenger, Family Safety, and our recently released SkyDrive for the Windows desktop."

Doesn't sound like they plan to move everybody to a web interface.

"Our current platform is currently current". That's all that can be inferred from the above. Of course the applications won't stop working just because Microsoft stops supporting them. It doesn't mean they haven't essentially discontinued WL essentials (the new Windows 8 apps are a part of Windows and, from what I gather, not on feature parity with their predecessors).

5 minutes ago, GoddersUK wrote

Tying these back in with the OS is a paradigm shift significant enough to be considered the death of the concept of Windows Live.

Not sure it's tied back in, they're still add-ons, downloaded, not within the OS.

I am sure they won't make any effort to move people away from the Essential suite but it will probably gather dust rather quick.

@brian.shapiro: My guess is that they will switch to a more generic label.  So instead of calendar.live.com it may go to something like calendar.microsoft.com.  It will probably just be branded as Microsoft Calendar.