@Columcille: No anti-MS snark intended, I assure you, however awkwardly worded. I only meant to say that yes, like Google, each of the MS apps in the Live package, by default, point your computer toward other Live services.
@JohnnyE: Stay tuned ...

Therevan

Is that like 2nd stage beta?

Brad

Windows live is really coming along. Nice website, pretty good layout, some nice services. If Google didn't exist this would be my pick. Really it offers everything I want online. I really have no complaints except that it isn't Google.

jackquack

I have been using Live Mail for over a year and its great for me. Its clean and simple.

I use this program is primarily to access to my Hotmail account. This seems to be the only free alternative to Outlook Express that lets me do that and check other accounts including my IMAP gmail account.

The best feature I like about this program is instant search. It shows results as you type.

The only thing that bugs me is the contact organizer. It needs to be redesigned to make it more usable.

If they also include a calender then this would be a complete package.

subzi

What exactly does "IMAP-enabled Windows Live Mail" mean? Does it mean an IMAP-enabled Windows Live Mail SERVER, i.e. that you can now access your Live Mail/Hotmail via IMAP with any IMAP-capable mail client? (Since GMail and AOL/AIM mail now offer IMAP on free email accounts, it would be nice/competitive if Microsoft followed suit.)

Unfortunately, it seems like "IMAP-enabled Windows Live Mail" only means an IMAP-enabled Windows Live Mail CLIENT, i.e. that you are still forced to use the Microsoft provided mail client to access your Live Mail/Hotmail account, but can enable that client to also connect to OTHER non-Live Mail/Hotmail accounts accessible via IMAP (from email providers who, unlike Microsoft, are kind/full-featured enough to provide IMAP access to their mail servers.)

If I'm wrong, I'd love to hear configuration details on how to access Live Mail via IMAP. There seems to be no such details on Live Mail help (and imap.live.com doesn't seem to exist, like pop3.live.com does.)

JohnnyE

"the difference being, of course, that the offerings aim to tie more of your computer life to Microsoft's platform."

As opposed to the purpose for the Google pack which is to draw people away from Microsoft. Google is doing nothing different with its pack than Microsoft with its live services. It's worth noting that almost all of the apps in the Google pack are either Google products or by default offer to install unrelated Google products.

Columcille

The good thing about Microsoft products are that their UI are unbeatable. It's light-years away from the competition and not because they own the OS in which their apps run but they have a really good UI team.

Even if you put together all the open source gurus/geeks/coders/evangelists in the world, their big egos (and bickerings) won't be able to come up with an excellent UI like Microsoft's.

BlackBeard

For all the badmouthing it gets, Microsoft still creates good products once in a while, like Windows Live Writer, which is easily the best desktop blog client available for Windows.

MemoK

I've found these tools to be excellent, although One Care would always crash my machine, at least in Beta. Glad to see some solid webapp competition from a big guy like Microsoft. Their stuff is often bloated and slow, but that's just cause they have so many more features than anyone else.

-=Ron Paul in 2008=-

corndog8

I too have been pleased with Windows Live Mail as an email client. I have a number of accounts set up in it. Including gmail and hotmail.

gpzbc

I'm quite disappointed that Outlook still doesn't have a good integrated answer to synchronization of PIM data on multiple computers. I've just signed up for Plaxo and will give that a try for a while (so far so good), but it kills me that Microsoft still has no good answer for a VERY common customer scenario: a user with more than one computer. I can only hope that it's at least in development, but man, Microsoft Outlook's customer base is going to start leaking away soon.

Steve Hollasch

@BlackBeard: Office 2007 made some great leaps in UI, to be sure, but I've always found a lot of MS's UI design confusing and clunky. The "Expandable Menus" thing introduced in Office 03 was a disaster.

And while I mentioned I think 2007's ribbon design is phenomenal, they haven't done a thing to improve the worst options box in the history of the universe: The Outlook Options Box. Take a look at it. It's the most confusing, unintuitive piece of crap ever. The spelling options are strewn across five different sub-boxes. There are "mail options" and "advanced options" under the "Mail" tab but then more mail options under the "other tab" and even more advanced options under that. I know there's a lot of options there, but they really need to streamline it.

Whew. That rant is now out of my system.

tommertron