.Net Jonesie - In Defence of Live & Vista

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

A few people have had some negative things to say about Microsoft Live & Vista of late. While I'm certainly no expert on either of these I'd just like to offer my observations.

Live is a google killer. From what I have seen so far, and from past experience, Microsoft will have a superior product based on one thing: Integration. No one does integration as well as Microsoft. Google is currently all over the place. Some things looks the same, some things work the same, but in general it's 'messy' :}

Sure, Live is very messy also but it's not even v1 yet. When the integration with Vista is working and Live is more Live, I think people might be less harsh.

HOWEVER, I don't like Live either and its not becuase it's buggy or evil, but becuase I've seen web portals before and adding a splash of Ajax is not going to spin my wheels. PORTALS JUST DON'T WORK. This whole Web 2.0 Mashup BS is just that - complete marking hype. Give it a year or two and we won't be any further ahead than we are now.

I beleive that Microsoft have a grander vision than Live and I think it is this: "The web does not work. Smart client applications are where it is at. Let's create a medium that will leverage both platforms and drive people back to Windows - but with an open implementation that will encourage development and adoption".

If I had my way I'd make HTML & JavaScript illegal. Sure it has it's place but everything in Web 2.0 is just a catchup to what Smart Client apps (or whatever you want to call them) have been doing for years.

As for Vista, that's a different story. Most people haven't seen the real power of Vista yet - and it's not anything you can see through the glass UI. The best parts of Vista are under the hood. I remember a lot of similar statements about XP 3 (?) years ago but look at it today - it's the domenant desktop UI by a huge margin.

I may be completely wrong on all of this - I often am - but one thing is certain - we love change. Sooner or later we will embrace it in one form or another.