Microsoft Must Be Listening, And That’s Good!

After spending a few days with Live Writer beta 2, Windows Live Mail, and the newest beta of Live Messenger 8.5 beta… I am frankly amazed.
I have been a harsh critic of Microsoft in the past few years, and still remain highly suspect of the need for Vista, but in the user spaces, they are making huge strides in winning me over.

The amazing changes from Live Writer beta 1 to beta 2 shows that they are listening to the many complaints, problems, and requests for change. Beta 2 has alleviated the problems I was having, and made it a joy to write to 2 different blogs. All my settings are imported, the output checked for spelling automatically before I upload, and then shown to me in a browser window. The only thing more to ask for would be a grammar checker… I doubt that will happen. You see I usually make mistakes in spelling, but they seem to be of the simple kind, where my finger doesn’t completely hit the key, so I will get ‘he’ instead of ‘the’. Oh, well, that will keep me proofing each one of these I send out.

Windows Live Mail is getting more and more like Outlook. It makes me wonder what MS is thinking here. On the one hand, they will please many with the new, powerful abilities of this program, but they will obviate the need for many to have Outlook. The interface is nice as installed, but so much ‘tinkering’ can be done to get it just the way one likes. In the words of Borat, ‘that’sa nice!’ It now is possible to use a Hotmail, er, that is, Windows Live Mail account as you would a POP3 account at home, yet still have the Web mail interface available when away from home.

As for Live Messenger 8.5 beta, much has been done to the look and feel, but I think it is more to present a united interface with the other products MS is coming up with, than to really change things. I know some have asked for things for several iterations of Messenger, that one can ‘build in’ with 3rd party programs, but apparently MS is turning a deaf ear, for now. The beta cycle is still open, and perhaps some of those called for features will appear.

Still, for those who thought this sort of thing could never happen [like me], it’s like Christmas in June.

[tags]Microsoft, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, beta software, betanews.com[/tags]