Matt Rolak says that Office Live is up

Microsoft Word, but on line? From a company that still doesn't understand even the rudiments of data security?

No, thanks.

J. Random: I totally disagree that we don't understand security, but can see how you'd have that perception.

Security at Microsoft has brought us Autorun.

The same Autorun that lets Sony install a fucking rootkit when a CD is inserted.

The same security that makes it a pain in the ass for Mark Russinovich to remove. Mark probably knows more about windows than 90% of the people employed at Microsoft. That's Microsoft's security for you.

scoble, can anyone use live? i mean support it by ads sure, but just give me a way to have OWA for free, and the new mail looks stunning, i hope they lose that big ad on the side and use something similar to gmail ads.

Silly me, I thought by going to the Office Live website I could, you know, actually use it. You know, like what happens when other companies announce a beta. But instead we get more promises of stuff coming down the line. WTF??????

Err... How does a splash screen equal "up"? I thought that the official Live launch was bad...

Well if anything Microsoft has to learn that to please people when you announce something the let it be up the second it's announced.

According to the site we have to wait till Q1, by then this will be forgotten and people will start calling it vaporware if it isn't out by Q1 2006.

I'm hoping that by the time Vista ships that all this will be compelte, and the microsoft platform will be allowed to flourish.

"...let it be up the second it’s announced."

Amen.

So, right now Office Live (as you can see from the page) is targeting small business users... to enable this beta it needs a little bit of headway for users to 'sign up' and get the right breadth of target audience... If I remember correctly this is very similar to some other popular betas out there... they went with a 'waitlist' first and then got off the ground not too long afterwards… seems to be a pretty good model. But I do 100% agree with what several posts indicate so far…. We MUST make it live for ‘real’ so people can see it. As the site says, we will launch with a beta version in early 2006… I for one have faith in this message (but hey, maybe I’m just drinking the Kool-aid ;-) It’s not a long wait to see though… 2006 is just around the corner.

If you want to beat Google you actually have to do something better than they did, don't whine that because GMail had an invite only phase that it makes your non-Annoucment A-Okay.

Wait, MS expects everyone to utterly rely on them for all their productivity software, and business domain hosting?

Get Lucid. Microsoft has yet to earn that level of trust from anyone, and I've yet to see any sign it ever will. recommending Office Live for a company's productivity needs should be grounds for immediate termination.

And someone tell Matt that a splash screen is NOT having it "out there in the world for real."

Jesus, people accuse Steve Jobs of distorting reality...

I see a lot of negative vibes from people about the Live stuff in the various blog comments. Just chill out, sit back and enjoy the show. Everyone was begging for AJAX applications and now they seem upset because it might come from microsoft. I'm happy to see new stuff come along and there's nothing to kick and scream about... yet.

A beta version of Microsoft Office Live will launch in early 2006.

Yawn. Wake me up when it matters. This is a launch? A hyped up 'soon to be coming' default screen? Hit the ground running, not cull for sign-up's (half of whom won't bother when you do launch). Why is MFST so focused on Google and advertising revenue? I'd go after the hybridish Salesforce with far more vigor, and shore up the ERP offerings (and boy is Microsoft Business Solutions headed for a meltdown).

Seems to me, Microsoft is signaling something to the Sun/Google alliance. But this 'web as a platform rot' wasn't true in Netscape days nor is it true in script-kludge AJAX days. Coming out with a webbyified SQL Server (or some upgrade more than once every 5 years, is more where MFST needs to focus on). Where's the Lotus Notes vision, where's the Groove, where's the real CRM? Where's the ERP fusion? Project Green is DOA? Ray's brain been hijacked by all the webby 2.0 start-up bloggy kiddies. If MFST could ever ship software and if anyone was ever excited about their CRM offering, they might be able to really make a dent. But this Live stuff is pure bunk and it's already dead.

Negative vibes? Just relax? Hahaha. Sounds like someone forgot to learn his PDC 2003 lessons.

PDC 2003 lessons ? Could you clarify (I don't get the joke) ? I don't really use any Microsoft products as I work in Linux most of the time. I just don't understand why everyone has to thrash Microsoft over this. A couple of weeks ago everybody was raving about AJAX as the dawn of a new era. Now it's as if they think it's just internet glitter.
It's not like this blog post was the official announcement that Office Live was available for all to work with. For the moment a holding page is more substance than the Sun/Google announcement.
The news is that Microsoft is slowly proving it knows how leverage AJAX and that it has the intention of doing so. This while all the bloggers and journalists wrote prophetic articles about the demise of Microsoft. As if they were sitting there in Redmond going "duhhh gee wiz, I wonder how those kids do that".

PDC 2003 was the earth-changing, froth up hype for Longhorn (now Vista), and right after most features were cut or backpedaled to XP. "PDC 2003 lessons" mean don't trust the vapor-nature, giddy-excitement of the Microsoft pre-announcement and blogger-army hype. AJAX (a buzzword itself) isn't the dawn of a new era, that of itself, is Web 2.0 bubbleish. But see, MFST bit into it, but then launched nothing more than a vague concept and a splash screen. Why does everyone have to thrash Microsoft? Quite simple, people are tired of not having the goods, only having the world's largest software company talk quite fluently in me-too vaporese. You release products, you don't release promises.

right gotcha. That's partly why I was saying to sit back an relax. It will be fun to see what actually unfolds. I hate the term Web 2.0, which doesn't seem to have any fixed definition, and yes AJAX (aka AJA ... oh heck I won't use the X part) has recently become the fit any headline buzzword. That's fine if you've felt like that for a while.
What I don't understand is people being so upset at Microsoft for something that would make them giddy if it came from google.

Holy shit, that is awesome. I was able to sign up to be notified down the road when this actually launches! Holy fucking shit, this is the new shit, this is the dope show!

I think they used ajax too, they invented it, they used ajax to take down my gmail address!

Funny reactions to the announcement of microsoft compared to, for instance, google and sun:
Google and Sun announce a partnership to promote open office = microsoft is -nearly- dead
Then Microsoft actually announce Office live (though not MS office online) + live messenger (looks really cool) + live mail(really cool too) + integration with all its online services (spaces, live.com...) + gives first bits of plateform for developpers to improve it (gadgets) = microsoft is ridiculous
Come on, It seems to me that microsoft is picking up the speed and that it soon will be right on top of the subject again.

Loic, can I interest you in this nice piece of bridge real-estate in Brookyln? Lots of traffic, prime location. :) Don't be naive, geesh. And I agree that the Googleisms hype is equally overwrought, but Google announcements usually have a product (even if in beta) to play with. The 'sign up to be informed 6 months or more' isn't exactly going to go over well. And it hasn't. You'd think they'd learn, but no matter how many times they stumble, you can't ever drive an ounce of sense into them. Ship, then announce. Not announce the world, and let everyone kick around 'what it all means' and then deliver half of what was promised. Common sense, but with MFST being unable to ship software of late, not too common sensical.

Chris, that's why I like Jobs. He announces a product, click, you can buy it from the company online store immediately.

Just looking forward to see Apple iTheatre (Dec. 23, 2005).

Not too much extra for me to contribute here. I spoke with Scoble and Larry Hryb of the Xbox Live team via email about my thoughts on Microsoft branding last week. I thought that it seemed backwards for Xbox to be branded on the web as My Xbox while the rest of Microsoft was moving away from the "My" branding. And now it looks like the rest of Microsoft is moving towards Live, which is already internally branded with Xbox Live.

It makes the My Xbox name even more out of place than before, but also confuses the issue. It's backwards.

Office Office Live
Windows Windows Live
Xbox Live My Xbox

The Google/Sun bisque was roundly criticised!

Gotta agree that "Office Live is up" as a poor description of what's actually there.

Another Microsoft yawner.

"I totally disagree that we don’t understand security, but can see how you’d have that perception."

Hmm...when I go to the Office Live site, and click on the 'Register today' button, Firefox gives me a big old "Website certified by Unknown Authority" error dialog. And do you know, now I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've only ever seen that dialog when accessing Microsoft sites.

(This was before I realised from the comments on here that there's nothing to see but a splash screen yet.)