* Would you have enough bandwidth for Live Software?
Note: This newsletter should have been sent on Monday, Nov. 7, but it slipped through the net. We are sending it now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I’m hoping the dust has settled, but just in case it hasn’t I’d like to put last week’s announcements by Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie into perspective. Right out of the box, though, let me note that Microsoft’s introduction of Windows Live and Office Live under the “Live Software” banner will have few positive effects on your network.
The same pundits who saw the recent joint press conference by Google and Sun (see my Oct. 17, Wired Windows column, “Google poses no threat to Microsoft”) as a direct attack on Microsoft’s Office franchise were roaring loudly that last week’s Gates and Ozzie-fest was the responding attack back at Google. The pundits are a bit closer to reality this time.
But Windows Live isn’t about operating systems and Office Live isn’t about productivity. Rather, they appear to be a pulling together of some disparate Web technologies with a bit of glitz wrapped around them so they can be re-introduced as a Web-based extension. (Take for example this enthusiastic line from the Windows Live Web site: “So the things you care about – your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, powerful search, your PC files, everything – comes together in one place.”) Hotmail, blogging tools, an online “Favorites” list – this is all about the personal (not business) version of Windows and home-based computing.
Office Live appears to simply be a new name for the Microsoft Small Business Center, a place for tiny businesses to develop a Web presence.
The glimmer of truth to the thought that this is an attack on Google is that most of the repackaged services are going to a new, advertising-supported model. The next version of Hotmail, for example, will look surprisingly like Google’s Gmail.
The problem for network managers is one of the traditional ones: bandwidth. All of these Web-based baubles will require a good-sized pipe for each user (broadband, rather than dial-up for home users). Your users will want to check with their online services while they’re at work, so they will expect a large piece of your Internet connection pipeline. If they abide by typical acceptable use policies, then this bandwidth grab will come all at once at lunch or at the end of the day.
Better start planning now to accommodate their wishes – or enforce your prohibitions – before the crunch hits sometime late next year.
