Windows Live Beta - What is it?

I keep getting emails about it, what the heck?

[Hubie]

What exactly is Windows Live? Is it like that Gotomypc service? Is it an email service? What gives?

Hubes

[bill]

That's a long answer. Windows Live is a collection of services that are growing in number almost every time I check. In one sense they're re-branding and updating MSN portal services. In another sense they are adding a number of centralized services like Mail, Favorites, and Anti-Virus to name a few. They've got descriptions of everything here:
[ideas.live.com...]

I think I know what you're getting at Hubie. ;) Will there finally be a way to get the benefits of a managed Exchange Server for your mail without having to pay all of the exorbitant licensing costs? Will there finally be a way to have a central message store and yet still use Outlook? Am I close?

I've been having difficulty signing up for these betas from Japan so I can't say for certain. However, it does look like the mail service will meet a lot of the needs that people like you and I are now using GoToMyPC for. MS will be putting a lot of centralized services up (as will Google, Yahoo and other portals) vying for your data. I think we'll be seeing a lot of online data storage and services real soon. This could alleviate a lot of the need for a lot of the VPN products we use today.

[BertieB]

I can only speak for the Live mail, which seems to be an AJAX implementation of a cross between Outlook and Hotmail, replete with preview pane, drag 'n drop™ interface, contacts, and calendar function.

Apparently it makes your tea too, though I have yet to find that button :)

I checked out the live homepage as well. From my very cursory glance, it seems to be some kind of 'personal homepage' along the lines of what a certain other search engine beginning with G is offering, though I'd have to use both to comment.

As far as I'm aware, Live is being pushed as the 'next generation' of MS services, with upgrades (well, changes) across the board. I would expect to see this made public and heavily marketed around the time of Vista's launch.

This could all be well-known news already, I'm not really keeping up to date with developments. Me? I just use the beta to check the mail in my old Hotmail account...

[Hubie]

Bill...as always...you know what I like, and what I want:)

We'll see how this develops..

Hubes

[bill]

Along the same lines did anyone ever try out Outlook Live [microsoft.com]? I couldn't get the signup to work from Japan, so I tried it in the US a few weeks ago when I was there and the site URL was dead: [outlooklive.msn.com...] I'm not sure what the status of this service is, but it sounded like a solution along the lines of what you were looking for Hubie.

I was really hoping to try out that Live Mail beta and was quite disappointed when I couldn't get it to work. I've applied again so maybe this time I'll have better luck.

[mattglet]

Outlook Live's URL is still dead.

[bcolflesh]

The Windows Live mail beta is just ok to me - seems kind of kludgey and slow right now, but it's a beta - what I really like is the revamped map service:

[local.live.com...]

I think this portion has definitely surpassed Google's current map incarnation.