Get ready for a new Live.com - Windows Live Home
At a briefing given to Japanese press about Windows Live, Tetuya Onoda (Windows Live Director) held up a nice big picture of the new Windows Live Homepage that looks set to replace the existing personalised Live.com page.
Context & Ripple Effects
The preview lands two months after Microsoft framed its consumer web push as a renewed focus on software plus services, and amid a summer of Live betas — Windows Live Photo Gallery and Live Drive, plus the Windows Live Folders beta in May. What was missing from that wave was a single front door, and that appears to be what Director Tetuya Onoda showed Japanese press: a Windows Live Home page positioned to replace the personalised Live.com start page.
First-order effects
- Existing personalised Live.com users are looking at their start page being replaced by the new Windows Live Home, changing where they land across Microsoft's consumer services.
Second-order effects
- The new homepage gives Microsoft's summer beta releases — Photo Gallery, Live Drive, Live Folders — a unified surface to plug into, rather than each service acquiring users independently.
Third-order effects
- If the replacement sticks, Microsoft is moving its consumer web presence away from a user-customised start page toward a company-controlled hub for an integrated suite — the structural shape of the software-plus-services strategy made visible.
The trend: Consumer portals in 2007 are shifting from open customisable start pages toward vendor-controlled hubs that aggregate a company's own suite of services.