Windows Live - Services for Developers

In the first days after .NET platform was released it was pretty hard to distinct between the core technology platform and products which had .NET as part of their names. (Can you still remember the names like .NET Passport, SQL Server.NET or Windows .NET Server?). As Microsoft has announced the Windows Live and Office Live few months ago I had the strange déjà vu feeling, as if I was seemingly in the same situation again, trying to differ between the software products, services and the accompanying offerings with the word “Live” in their names.

Office Live for example is a set of Internet-based services for small-businesses. It is basically a web-hosting offering from Microsoft with some services like domain name and e-mail accounts offered for free. Other services like customer management, employee management and SharePoint workspaces can be purchased on subscription basis.

There are many different products running under the Live banner, with their count growing rapidly almost on the daily basis. Perhaps the most well known of them is the Windows Live Messenger, the successor of MSN Messenger. I have been using Live Messenger since closed beta and have almost forgotten that it was actually beta software because everyone in my contact list has had it. The functionality of the Live Messenger can be extended via activity SDK and the new Messenger add-in SDK.

Live.com is Microsoft’s search engine with a customizable start page where you can add the RSS feeds and useful mini applications (gadgets) to the page. There is already a wide range of already implemented gadgets on microsoftgadgets.com. If you want to implement your own, take a look at Microsoft Gadget SDK. There are two kinds of gadgets at the moment: gadgets for live.com and gadgets for Windows Vista sidebar. The unified programming model has been announced for the near future.

The technology used for live.com gadget-programming is actually very simple. It is a java script library with utility classes for making web service cross domain http calls from java script (basic AJAX technology).

From developer’s point of view, the most interesting part of Windows Live platform are Windows Live Services and corresponding application programming interfaces (APIs).

There are some well known services like Windows Live ID (formerly known as passport), MSN Search or Virtual Earth among them and a several new ones like Windows Live Expo Service, which provides access to a collection of location-tagged classifieds listings in categories like events, sports, autos, and commercial services.

These services can be used to create the so called mashups, applications which combine the existing services in new ways, offering new functionality and user experience. For example you could use the windows live expo service, virtual earth and customized live.com search macro for cooking recipes to create a mashup which shows the grocery stores in your town which are selling necessary ingredients for your quiche lorraine or your beef carpaccio. The mashup could be enhanced with a messenger conversation robot (bot) to provide a dialog based user interface to your mashup.

These applications are perhaps in the creative and the proof-of-concept stage at the moment, but in a year or two they will significantly change the ways we interact with internet.

More Information on Windows Live for developers: http://dev.live.com