Yesterday I posted a blog entry talking about the imminent announcement of Windows Live Folders.
Microsoft will be hoping that this offering starts to drive heavy adoption of other Windows Live services - it could be their make or break. Hence, I've been thinking about what offerings they will have around this and also how other Windows Live Services will leverage it. Here are some predictions:
- I think you can virtually guarantee that everyone will get some space for free and then they'll offer more space for a subscription fee. If they have any sense they will offer premium packages as well - I envisage Office Live customers going for that in a big way.
- Disk space is cheap and getting cheaper so the subscription model will be driven by bandwidth, not by space used (this is the model that Flickr uses). The more you use your stored content, the more you pay.
- Photos on Live Spaces will get stored in your Live Folders.
- Shared folders in Live Messenger will migrate to Live Folders.
- There will be a Live Spaces gadget for viewing your Live Folders.
- Windows Explorer will be your desktop client for accessing Live Folders. You will be able to effortlessly drag-and-drop between your local folders and your Windows Live Folders. This should mean that you will also be able to access your Live Folders from your existing software such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe etc... And of course, because this is a cross-platform service you will be able to store those documents on Live Folders then access and edit them from (e.g.) a Mac.
- Pictures/photos stored in public Live Folders will be indexed by Live Search Images.
- Soapbox videos will be migrated to be stored in your Live Folders.
- Music and film distributers will start to come down hard on Microsoft when people start making copyrighted material available to the public on their Live Folders.
- Favorites will be stored in Live Folders
- Before long all web-based access to your Live Folders will be done using a Silverlight interface.
- There will be an API to enable 3rd party apps to use Live Folders.
- There will be Live Folders offerings bundled with Windows Home Server.
All this will be tied together by your Windows Live ID. Microsoft will be hoping that their investment in Microsoft Passport all those years ago is now gonna pay off huge.
Like I said, these are only my predictions. Don't expect that any of this will actually happen.
-Jamie
Posted to Windows Live (RSS feed) & Live Folders (RSS feed)