Windows Live Platform Discussion with Koji Kato and Danny Thorpe

Windows Live is best known as a collection of end-user offerings – like Messenger, Spaces, Search, Hotmail and a whole bunch more.  It’s also in the process of evolving into a platform.  Koji Kato and Danny Thorpe, from the Windows Live platform team, discuss their views on internet software and what it means to “componentize” Windows Live.

Koji sets some context by drawing an analogy to Office (00:02:27), and its early evolution from a set of end-user targeted apps to a set of components.  Beta versions of the Windows Live Contacts Control and Spaces Photo Control (described by Danny around 00:11:37) represent some of the initial Windows Live components, and include customization plans (00:21:21), international/localization support (00:19:13), and support for multiple browsers (00:18:15).

Koji Kato is a Group Program Manager on the Windows Live platform team.

Danny Thorpe is Architect on the Windows Live platform team.

The interview was conducted by Catherine Heller, Windows Live Technical Evangelist (who you may remember from her former Windows Vista evangelism days).

And in case you didn’t catch the URL at the end (00:24:11), http://dev.live.com is the source for all things developer-related around Windows Live!