Windows Live services planned
Posted by: trraju on Mar 01, 2006 - 09:37 PM
Microsoft
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Microsoft Corp. issued updates Tuesday for several of its Internet-based Windows Live services as the company tries to win over users of Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. products.
Microsoft's latest updates:
The company said it plans to open its new online classifieds service for public testing in the United States. The service, Windows Live Expo, at expo.live.com, was previously code-named Fremont and open only to employees at select companies. It's modeled after an internal service for Microsoft employees, letting people choose how widely they want to list an item, confining it to their own companies or releasing it more broadly. Windows Live Expo could compete with existing services such as craigslist.org.
Microsoft said it would issue a preview of a mapping program that lets customers view street-level images of locations. The preview, at preview.local.live.com, includes images for downtown Seattle and San Francisco. Competing services, including Amazon.com's A9 search engine, have similar features. Microsoft and Facet Inc. are collecting images in dozens of cities to expand the service. Microsoft plans to incorporate it into the company's satellite mapping tool, Windows Live Local, by September.
In March, Microsoft will begin testing Windows Live Mail Desktop, which will let customers aggregate and sort e-mail from Web-based e-mail accounts operated by Microsoft and competitors, said Adam Sohn, Microsoft's director in global consumer marketing. The company said it is making the test version of Windows Live Mail, the successor to its Web-based Hotmail program, available more widely.
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! are vying to introduce new Internet products and features that capture consumer attention and Internet ad revenue. Microsoft is trying to make up ground lost to Google, which operates the No. 1 Internet search engine, when Google beat Microsoft to market with products such as PC search and satellite mapping technology.
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