Software as a Service

Is Microsoft really behind in its initiatives with “Windows Live”? Since I was there when the world – at least the Java guys - called Microsoft.Net initiative as “vaporware”, I suspect that it really might not. Though Microsoft has enough resources to buy its way into this futurescape, I feel it doesn’t have to. Windows Update is by far the most effective way to deliver OS Updates and is a feat not matched by any “practical” Operating Systems. Microsoft gets notified when a program on your machine crashes. Yes, it merely gets posted for the end-user with no apparent benefit. For Microsoft? It builds a database on possible failures that its Windows Updates can “evolve” to learn to anticipate and suggest “solutions”. Software-as-a-service is an idea, if I remember correctly, is something I read having propounded by Bill Gates about quite sometimes in the past. Now, yeah, Microsoft may be trailing its competitors in delivering on that promise. But don’t underestimate Microsoft. It may be a behemoth but when it moves, it does so with surprising speed. And, it has all the right things going for it. It has the software - Windows, IE, Windows Media Player, Windows CE, Windows Mobile - and partnerships - with Noika, Palm(!), AOL (Heard Microsoft is trying to buy into it?) and million other deals not disclosed to the mere mortals to do it for them.