Devnet Cloud View & Web Industry News

Windows Live is getting ready for round 3 in the ring with consumers, so far this month they have ruined Hotmail for their 375 million active customers.  The next kid on the bandwagon is a new version of MSN Messaging service which they plan to require all their 330 million users to upgrade to the new system or be left out in the cold.

Messenger which is already the closest piece of software to spyware, try and remove it from your system or disable it automatically loading when you login to Hotmail.  You can now use the new Windows Live Messenger system to bloat your conversations with pictures, feeds and multiple chat windows.

So no longer do users need to login to facebook to post photos, they can post individual photos to anyone who still uses messenger.  This updated software is not to help users connect, its a scare tactic to stop the billions of photos shared, tagged and commented on across social networks like Facebook & Flickr. Facebook has a application for the iPhone, which has an internal application that you can use to check your hotmail, but current Microsoft doesnt support iPhones because its Windows Mobile conflicts.

The Live updates are based around US users initially this ensures that any complaints will be likely in English, and they should be able to understand users angry.  But according to MSN Press Releases going forward this project will be rolled out globally to all 54 countries…? this is actually 1/3 of the world ignoring the 192 states that the UN recognises.

So the language support for 48 languages would really be English (Australian), English (New Zealand), English (Canadian), English (American), English (Scottish), English (English), English (Welsh), English (Nth Irish), English (Irish), English (UK) + 38 other popular languages their marketing team speak.  This type of Press Statement is more FUD to try and stop people looking at other online products such as Google Apps.

Microsoft Live Mesh is another product that seems to have been launched to a beta group and canned before coming out with a new better market name “SkyDrive” for those wishing to get a glorified FTP shared folder without the benefits.

To ensure that you don’t forget that you are using Windows already to view these websites, the domain http://www.windowslive.com allows for access to all your services by 2009.

Google Apps Premier Edition makes it all too easy by allowing companies to setup CNAME records on your own domain.  These cryptic subdomains for their products can be setup on your domain by our team at Devnet.  This customisable subdomains aim to make you life difficult with hard to remember example url’s listed below.

If you want to check your email “http://mail.example.com.au”
If you want to view a document “http://docs.example.com.au”
If you need to view internal material “http://sites.example.com.au”
If you need to check an appointment “http://cal.example.com.au”

These can even be further crazy customised such as m.example.com.au or email.example.com.au, all possible by Devnet technical staff.  These subdomains can prove time consuming to learn as to people may get confused easily, because if i want to send a document through email, do I log into docs.example.com.au or mail.example.com.au. Google Apps Premier Edition is able to do what you need easily and quickly.

Google Apps even lets you send and open documents in the any of its applications, there must be a trick ive used MSN Live so it cant be that easy to open a Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or PDF document. Google Apps seems too much easy to use, and even compatible with Microsoft products.

Google Apps sneakily links all your accounts through cryptic text links at the top of all the applications under the guise of “Mail”, “Calendar”, “Documents”.  How can that compete with obvious and cool marketing product names such as SkyDrive, Spaces, Hotmail?

Google Apps also plays with you mind, as it automatically shares your login information across all its applications.  Only one login to use all their applications, i dont really believe that it could be so simple, it must be a trick? If you want to ensure you are in the right account you can choose to ignore the permanent login identifier “adam@example.com.au” text visiable at all times in the top right of your screen.  You could just follow the MSN Live model and just hope that you are in the right account, as all your Microsoft personal and business accounts refer to you as “Adam Citizen”.

So to clarify this Google Apps offers one login, multiple products across one account, with just one login, i think this is a product worth trying.

So if you are still interested in what Microsoft may or may not offer in Live, in 2009.  That is if you are in the lucky 1/3 of the world that Microsoft allows to use its free and cool sounding applications, but i think you should still trial Google Apps as it works on Windows, Mac & Linux.

Speak with Devnet who are Australia’s Asia-Pacific partners and they can step you through the process of getting Google Apps live Today not in 2009…