I think the reason we have heard so little about Windows Live Wave 4 is because aspects of the suite are closely related to Windows Mobile 7 and as such Microsoft are reluctant to talk about it until their new mobile OS has been announced and demonstrated. Below I discuss some of the ideas I have had in which Windows Live Wave 4 could, hopefully, integrate with Windows Mobile 7.

Windows Live Devices?

We know Microsoft will be adding a new service, Devices, to the suite when they release wave 4 which suggests to me that many different gadgets, possibly including TVs, will be able to link up to Windows Live. It is also possible that aspects of the devices can be controlled, in some way, through the service. Currently Windows Live links up well with Digital Photo Frames, through FrameIt, and I expect the devices service to incorporate them. It is also understood that Live Mesh will become part of the Windows Live family so we see a place to add computers and mobiles to the service just like in Live Mesh. Finally I both believe and hope that the Microsoft My Phone service will utilise the Live Mesh technology, therefore become a Windows Live service; which should reduce the replication of data, such as contacts (currently Windows Live and My Phone don’t use the same list of contacts). To that end Microsoft won’t want to show off Windows Live Wave 4 yet as it would show the level of integration of phone storage of future Windows Phones and Windows Live.

If Microsoft is serious about the cloud then this is something they really need to do, by combining all their online services into a single place with the ability to centrally control linked devices and their storage it will make using Windows Phones and Windows Live much simpler for consumers.

Windows Live only services on mobiles?

If we now look at Windows 7 we saw Microsoft remove many of the default applications like Mail and Calendar so the company couldn’t be sued for bundling applications with the OS. Now the only way to access similar applications from Microsoft is to download the Windows Live suite. Microsoft could well follow a similar idea with Windows Mobile, but not for fear of being sued. It makes more sense to me to have a single calendar accessible on any Microsoft platform, whether that is Windows, Windows Mobile or on the cloud; the same can be said for contacts, tasks and several other aspects of Microsoft services. Instead of Microsoft providing downloadable applications to access these services I expect they will embed them within the OS with mobile calendar being the Windows Live Calendar. Some people could be concerned with the integration then between Windows Mobile and Office Outlook, however through the merging of Office and Windows Live in the cloud, through Web Apps, I can see a closer integration between Windows Live and Office Outlook.

It makes sense for Microsoft to only provide highly integrated services on their phones which link up with the cloud services of Windows Live; for example I would love to be able to sync my Windows Live Calendar with the calendar on my Windows Phone (why this has not yet been done still amazes me).

Windows Live going Social?

From job postings we know Microsoft are aiming to make Windows Mobile social by integrating several Social Networks deep within the OS, this could indeed mean an expansion for Windows Live. Microsoft My Phone already allows sharing photos on several Social Networking Sites from within the service. If then, as I predict, My Phone becomes part of Windows Live Microsoft will be making their online suite of services even more social. It makes sense that Microsoft would use Windows Live as the platform to share content, for a start they already have a good Photo service which I expect to soon be joined by a Video service. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we see the launch of a URL shortening service from Microsoft, probably along the lines of WinLi.ve. Messenger is one of the most used Instant Messaging services and if Microsoft were able to leverage those social interactions through more aspects of Windows Live they could stand to gain quite a lot. Again if Microsoft were to use Windows Live as the means of consumers sharing content to Social Networks then they wouldn’t want to show parts of Windows Live before Windows Mobile.

For me it would seem Microsoft is gearing Windows Live up to be a platform for sharing content, they already have a lot of websites partnered up to allow people to keep informed of “What Is New” with their contacts; it would therefore be logical for Microsoft to provide a means of reversing the exchange of information and allowing posting of information to those services via Windows Live.

I am really looking forward to information on both products from Microsoft and would hope my ideas would only scratch the surface of what Microsoft has really been up too. I guess we shan’t be hearing much with regards either of the products for over a month until the Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona on 15^th February; seems a long way off yet.

2009 has been a pretty big year for Microsoft where they had to get thing rights and for the most part they did. Windows 7 has been and continues to be a roaring success and the new Zune software and Zune HD have been well received, if only by a small number of people in the US. I hope Microsoft are able to continue this way of thinking and high standard in 2010 where we can hope to see some more well thought out, well designed and well executed products.

Coming Soon

There are few products we will see launch over the next year.

Office 2010 (first half of the year)

I am currently using and loving the Office 2010 Beta and find it good improvement to 2007. Other than all applications using the Ribbon I don’t think there is anything in the suite that will require users of 2007 to upgrade to 2010 other lots of small improvements and additions.

Another aspect of the launch of the new Office suite is the Web Apps that will allow people to create and edit files in browsers with a set of limited Office tools, this to me will be one of the best features of the new suite.

Windows Live Wave 4 (first half of the year)

Regular readers to this site will know that I love Windows Live and am constantly looking for any news and predicting things we could see in the suite, unfortunately we don’t know very much at all about the new wave of services and applications. I believe there will be a release of the new wave in January, whether that be a beta or final version I don’t know.

Windows Mobile 7 (second half of the year)

Windows Mobile 7 will definitely be released in 2010 and it is likely to have a beta version release in the first half of the year, but again very little information is known about what Microsoft plan to add to their mobile OS.

Internet Explorer 9

We know Microsoft are working on the next version of Internet Explorer and it will use hardware acceleration to enhance browsing, but again little is known about what else Microsoft plan to add.

Silverlight 4

Silverlight 4 is already in beta and we can expect a full release later in 2010

Keeping it updated

Bing

Microsoft will continue to work on their search engine to keep it competitive with Google and once the Yahoo deal comes into affect we could expect to see a greater presence of Bing on the internet.

Windows Mobile 6.X

It sounds like Microsoft will be continuing to update the current version of Windows Mobile in 2010, before the release of Windows Mobile 7, as information about 6.5.3 is beginning to leak out.

Is it too much to ask?

Internationalisation of Zune

I would love to see the Zune service come to the rest of the world so I could buy my music through the service and could buy a Zune HD, officially supported, in the UK. I expect that at least the software and Zune.net will go international in 2010 as we know Microsoft will release a Zune app for Windows Mobile with its next release, could be 6.5.3 or 7.

Courier

When information and videos about Microsoft’s Courier concept it the internet in September there was much support and lusting for the device and I hope that a device taking on a similar form and functionality comes to the markets in 2010, I know for me it would be brilliant in lectures.

Project Natal

We know Microsoft plan to release this accessory for the Xbox to allow controller free gaming but I think it would be great if the technologies weren’t restricted to only the Xbox but Microsoft used the techs as a platform and brought aspects of it too various consumer electronics, would allow some great innovations.

Cloud PC

Now that Microsoft is serious about Cloud computing in the way of Windows Azure it is likely we will see more services from Microsoft accessible via the internet. I made a prediction a while back that we might see a Cloud PC from Microsoft that allows people to have single place to launch Web Apps and access their online storage from the internet instead of using a long list of bookmarks. Originally I thought this would only be useful for Office Web Apps, but thinking about it I think we might see some Windows Live Web Apps and maybe even a Zune Web App, allowing users to play their music on a PC anywhere in the world.

Trends of 2010

I think we will see a continued growth in Windows 7, Bing and Silverlight in 2010 but Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Mobile will continue to lose market share; with the new releases they might start to gain market share by the end of the year.

Zune will be a fairly slow mover unless Microsoft do something major with it whereas Xbox will continue to do well over the next year with some great games lined up for it and the release of Project Natal.

There will be many surprised in 2010 both good and bad for us Microsoft followers, I know I am looking forward to what ever the new year has to offer.

I wish you all the very best in 2010!

Continuing on with my belief that we will be seeing a video hosting service when Wave 4 is launched I put some thought into the service, clearly Microsoft wont be using Flash to play the videos but Silverlight instead. After doing some searching I found Microsoft already provide a video uploading tool for Silverlight video playback as a Windows Live service beta (not a Wave 3 branding).This service already has ads appearing in videos, similar to the ways ads appear in Youtube videos, something I would expect to see in the free service.

Its not to hard to believe that a video service would be coming to Windows Live if, what seems to be, a lot of the backend work has already been done albeit in a beta state.

Windows Live redirections

I was playing around the other day and found some interesting things about where different .live.com addresses redirect too. First thing to note is that gibberish.live.com redirects to home.live.com so you would assume that all addresses other than live services redirect to home.live.com. However, this is wrong as shown by entering some of the rumoured new services coming to the Windows Live suite.

Devices.live.com redirects to skydrive.live.com which one would guess means groundwork has been laid for the arrival of the Devices which is likely to have very close integration with SkyDrive. Interestingly documents.live.com redirects to home.live.com.

Another interesting redirection is webim.live.com which redirects to a bing search of webim.live.com perhaps meaning there will be a dedicated service for Web IM and not just through Hotmail or http://webim.live.sg/.

Unfortunately it isn’t possible to check if videos.live.com redirected to an intriguing domain as, like images.live.com, it redirects to bing page for searching that media type.

This could all be circumstantial but I don’t see why some speculated services’ domains wouldn’t redirect to home.live.com. If you know of/discover any other good .live.com addresses and redirections please let me know.

Seeing as there is less than a week until Microsoft’s Season of Love kicks off with the launch of the Zune HD I thought I should mention, for those of you who have been living under a rock and in the dark for the past couple of months, what Microsoft is releasing over the next couple of months.

First off we have the Zune HD, on Monday 15th September, Microsoft’s MP3 player with a touch screen, HD radio, HD output to TVs, Applications and full internet access. This really is aimed at the Apple iPod Touch. We can also expect to have the newest version of Zune PC software to be released and ready for download on the same day.

Then 3 weeks following that we have the latest version of Windows Mobile launching globally, on Tuesday 6th October, with a few phone manufactures already announcing they will have phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 on that day. I would also expect to hear that there will be several companies teaming up with Microsoft to release new applications for the Windows Mobile platform.

After only 2 short weeks we will then have the biggest launch of the year with Windows 7 going on sale everywhere on Thursday 22nd October, there will probably even be parties to celebrate this launch near you. I don’t think I need to say much else for this really apart from that I expect Windows Live to either be released or have a beta release at about the same time.

I will keep you updated on these launches and more information in blog posts, as always. If you want more interesting way to keep up to date than read my posts then make sure you check out the calendar as I will add new events as I hear about them to that page and check to see if there are any public launch parties near you.

P.S. The title of this is very much tongue-in-cheek.

UPDATE: It sounds like Microsoft will also be adding Bing to their line of updates/releases if what people have been tweeting if to be believed, it could be as soon as the week begining Septmber 14th.

This is to be the first of a series of articles where bloggers and commentators tell the story of their Microsoft Life which I hope will be published over the next few weeks.

My Microsoft Life

My Microsoft life must have started well back in 1997 when my parents first got a PC with Windows 95 on it, I can’t remember much about it as I never used it much other than that it had Office 97 and that the internet was good for Gameboy games cheats. I think my main use for PCs for the next few years was mostly for gaming, Age of Empires II, Tiberium Sun Firestorm and Diablo II being the games I remember playing the most and occasionally still play today. My parents didn’t upgrade the PC until 2003 when they got an XP machine and I guess they must have had Office 2003 too.

It must have been in 2003 that I really started to appreciate technology for what it was and not something to play games on and to found out cheats for said games. Not only did we get a new PC at home but I also got my first mobile phone, a Samsung A900 (if I remember correctly), and by the end of the year I had my first laptop brought through a scheme my school was running. My Acer TravelMate ran XP Professional and I loved it, it was a much better system than 95 or 98 (the only other OSes I had used). On my Acer I had Office 2003 and between Office and Windows that was my sum total of experience with Microsoft’s products.

At school I had a friend who was very much into technology, gadgets and everything else that goes with it, he persuaded me, in probably 2004, to getting a HP iPAQ running Windows PocketPC which I used for note taking, reminders and writing basic documents without the need to carry my laptop round. The PocketPC offered more than I used but it started my want of the latest gadgets and technology, from here my passion for technology kept growing and I started to find new software that I hadn’t even heard about before, such as MSN Messenger, as it was called then.

I loved Messenger even though I hardly had any contacts on it as it meant I could chat to a few of my friends any time they were home for free, pretty soon after signing up I was asking all my friends if they were on messenger, most said no and so I started to show them what it was like. Naturally most of them signed up which only made messenger better, its next to useless with no one online.

Because I liked my PocketPC so much and my phone was on the blink in early 2006 I started looking for a new phone and knew I needed it to be running on Windows Mobile as it could do so much more than my basic Samsung. After I while of trying to figure out which was the best phone for me I decided I wanted the HTC Wizard from O2; this was a great phone, running on Windows Mobile 5. Later in 2006 I had decided that I wanted my own PC in my room as sharing one computer with 3 other people was getting quite tiresome, I knew that if I wanted to have a PC in my room we would need to get broadband and wireless. Seems strange to think of having dial-up but we were one of the last people I know to get broadband and wireless.

It must have been about this time when Windows Live was created and made a unified brand for some of the services Microsoft were offering and I have to say it was great. What I most loved was the beta stuff as it meant I was able to use the very latest software, help fix it and be using things people I knew had never heard of. I have stayed with the Windows Live products ever since and have only become more interested in what they can offer.

I had a lot of help from my friend on what I would need to buy for my custom built PC and by mid January 2007 I had my PC up and running, I had XP but knew I would be getting Vista very soon because of what I had seen it looked great and I wanted it; same for Office 2007 and I found the ribbon interface to be a brilliant piece of user interface. I wasn’t quite as interested then in the latest tech as I am now or else I would have found that I could have tested Vista out months before I actually bought Vista Ultimate in 2007. I was very happy having the latest OS on my own PC and a phone that did everything I wanted.

However I managed to break the screen of my HTC Wizard and so I had to start looking for a new phone all over again. It took me months to decide which phone to get as I really liked the HTC Touch but I also loved the qwerty keyboard on the Wizard and in the end I made a compromise and got the HTC Touch Dual running Windows Mobile 6. The phone is alright but I don’t think it was as good as the Wizard and the only reason I still have the phone is because there are rumours that HTC are working on the HD2 and because Microsoft have yet to release Windows Mobile 6.5.

By the end of 2007 I had found that there was another gadget I could use and that was a camera, my phone just didn’t cut it as one, so when in New York City for Christmas I decided to by Fujifilm F50SE which was another great device. I didn’t want an MP3 Player as I had a 8GB micro SD card for my phone and used that for my music. By having a camera I have found that I use Windows Live more and more; Windows Live Photo Gallery is great for quickly tweaking the photo and Windows Live Photos is great for viewing the photos online, especially the Silverlight Slideshow. Windows Live Movie Maker has just been released and I can see myself using that quite a bit and there is Windows Live Mail/Hotmail which I use every time I am on any computer whether it view the browser of the essential application.

By following Windows Live as closely as I do I heard about Live Mesh very quickly and started using it in its beta form and found it to be a brilliant service, I use it today and not sure how I was able to work without it. Aside from Live Mesh the first half of 2008 was quite for me and my technology but in the summer my camera stopped working, I tried to get it fixed but because I brought it from America Fuji weren’t being helpful at all and it would have cost me a lot to get it repaired, it wasn’t until Easter 2009 that I got a new camera.

As I was starting university in the Autumn of 2009 I wanted to get a laptop or PC. I needed the PC to be small as I didn’t much fancy moving a huge one between my university halls and home. I also wanted something I could take to lectures to take notes too. I was undecided on what to get until I went shopping one day and saw a HP Pavilion Slim with a clearance price which came with a 24” monitor for less than £500 together. I bought it straight away and then soon after ordered an Acer Aspire One. The two have worked excellent (apart from a few issues with the netbook) at university and with Live Mesh I have easy access to my files at which ever computer I am at.

Last October/November time I was very glad to hear so much good information about Windows 7 and couldn’t wait to try it out when the beta went public. I put it on my home PC as soon as the beta came out and instantly loved the OS, I have not got around to putting it on all my laptops and PCs and keep threatening to put it on the home computer and maybe my parents’ laptops. I have my copies of Windows 7 preordered and can’t wait to put the final version on my machines.

I said earlier I brought a new camera this year and the other device I have got is a 8GB Zune that won from Shurgard via a Twitter competition. I think I should mention how good I have Twitter to be as I try and keep up to date with the latest technology as by following the people, websites and companies that I do I am able to hear about things I wouldn’t otherwise have done, I probably wouldn’t have set this blog up either. This summer has been great for me, I have really got into following everything happening in the technology sector and I am very glad I have found places like the Windows Live Clubhouse (I am still very surprised that I won the best story category in the awards and I thank everyone who voted for me in that) as it keeps me up to date and connected with some many people who know all the answers and are as passionate about technology and Microsoft as I am.

There is probably much I have missed but what I have here shows that I do pretty much live a Microsoft Life.

My Microsoft Future

By the end of the year I would hope to have a Zune HD (not sure how easy that will be as it is currently only for the US!), a new phone running Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows 7 on all my computers. With regards software I can’t wait to see what new applications and services there will be in Windows Live Wave 4 (I have already made some predictions about that) and what new feature will be being added to the Office 2010 beta and how well the Web Apps work with it. Then there is PDC 09, strange to have 2 in consecutive years, maybe it’ll be Windows Mobile 7 announcements

I would like to have an XBox at some point but I don’t have a TV, I don’t do much gaming and being a student I don’t have oodles of money that I could spend on it. Another product/service I would like to be able to use the Zune Marketplace to buy music but that is only for the US at the moment.

Why Microsoft?

Its not that I don’t like any other company its just that for when and what I have needed Microsoft has always been able to offer it and now that Microsoft seem to be tightening their services up to make sure they work as well as they possible can I can only see things getting better. I am sure the iPhone is superior in most ways to my phone and any other Windows Mobile 6 phone but I am hoping that Windows Mobile 7 will be much better and a real competitor to it and so I don’t want to buy an iPhone yet. That is the kind of thinking I have for most of Microsoft’s products and services and I have yet to be majorly disappointed by anything they have done.

Windows Phone 7 | Windows Live Wave 4 | Latest Articles

Welcome to My Microsoft Life!

Please make yourself at home here and enjoy the very latest Microsoft news and rumours about a wide range of the company’s products, software and services.

I also have other blogs around the web for those of you who are interested in the Metro UI found on Windows Phone 7 and Zune called Typography and Squares. However if you are interested in than just Microsoft news then you can check out Michael Gillett Online where I write editorial pieces about a wide range of topics including technology.

I am currently looking for people who have their own Microsoft life to share their reasons for living such a life, what products and services they use and what they the pros and cons of the life are. If you are interested in writing an article to join the "My Microsoft Life" collection or just want to let me know something then please get in touch.

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Gilly