MS To Launch Internet Versions of Office And Windows

Has it finally happened? Has Microsoft realized (at an exec level, many non-CEx's there have realized for a while) that the world is changing in a direction that will eventually severely hurt their two cash cows, Windows and Office? It would seem so. Unfortunately, I currently get a Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-) message, but the fact that they even admit that someone may come to the site not using IE is a small step in the right direction. One has to wonder how much the rumors of a “Google Office” along with their recent hiring of OOo developers had to do with this. One also has to wonder how crippled Microsoft will make these online versions, as they are surely not ready to put the two cows out to pasture yet. One very encouraging thing I noticed was that Bill Gates says that data will be able to easily flow in and out of these live offerings. Fantastic. Microsoft really lost most consumer trust long ago, and this would be a good way to start getting it back. It needs to be more than lip service though and whether that will happen remains to be seen. Right now it looks like the bottom tiers of the offerings will be free and ad supported, with paid higher tiers coming soon. It also looks like you can run this online via Microsoft servers or run it on your servers. I'd guess some of the details are still being worked out and they wanted to get this thing out as soon as possible. Scoble says that, while Windows Live just looks like a portal now, there's more to come. Tim seems optimistic about the offering while Russell thinks that Live isn't about Web 2.0 at all, it's all about Monopoly 4.0. These really are interesting times and it looks like we may finally have some competition in spaces we haven't had any on a long time. That's a good thing on all counts, IMHO.
Microsoft, Google, Web 2.0, Windows Live, Live.com
–jeremy