Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft today said that the promised Live Anywhere is nearly here as they formally announced Games for Windows — LIVE:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the extension of the Xbox LIVE® games and entertainment network to the Windows® platform, bringing together the most popular online console game service with the most popular games platform in the world. Debuting on May 8, 2007, with the launch of the Windows Vista™ version of the Xbox® blockbuster “Halo® 2,” Games for Windows — LIVE will connect Windows gamers to over six million gamers already in the Xbox LIVE community. Then, launching in June, “Shadowrun™” will for the first time connect Windows gamers with Xbox 360™ players in cross-platform matches using a single service. “UNO®,” releasing later in 2007, will also support cross-platform play between Windows and Xbox 360.

The launch of Games for Windows — LIVE marks a major expansion of the Xbox LIVE service across multiple platforms, uniting gamers with a single identity, a single gamertag, a single friends list and a single list of achievements attainable on the Xbox 360 and a Windows-based PC. Games for Windows — LIVE gamers will be able to easily find and play supported titles online with their friends across a Windows computer or an Xbox 360. As a unified service with Xbox LIVE, Games for Windows — LIVE will be available in every country and region supported today by Xbox LIVE.
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Members of Xbox LIVE automatically receive the functionality of Games for Windows — LIVE, using the same gamertag and friends list at no additional cost. For a single, unified service, the pricing of the LIVE services across both Xbox and Games for Windows is identical. In addition, Games for Windows — LIVE introduces the best of Xbox LIVE functionality to please PC gamers, such as in-game voice chat, integrated achievements and dedicated servers. The offering of both Silver and Gold memberships will remain in place for gamers on the Xbox 360 and Windows PC. There is no cost associated with signing up for a Silver membership. Gold memberships will deliver the premium online network experience for $49.95 (U.S.) per year. Current Xbox LIVE Gold members will automatically have access to Gold features on Games for Windows — LIVE titles.

The full press release and the Games for Windows -LIVE FAQ have more details on the difference between the Silver and Gold levels, but the big one is no cross-platform play without a Gold subscription. Unlike Xbox LIVE, Silver level players are allowed multiplayer games, but only with other PC players.

The release materials are also a trifle cagey about what the system requirements are for PC gamers to play, although the three touted titles seem to be Vista only. Benjamin J. Romano clears that up in a Seattle Times interview with Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s group product manager for Xbox Live and the new service:

Microsoft plans to have three titles available for the PC online gaming platform in 2007, and they’re all designed to run on its new Windows Vista operating system.
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Microsoft sees this as a potential spur to Windows Vista sales. Multimedia improvements in the operating system such as the Direct X 10 graphics engine will entice video-game enthusiasts to the new operating system, Greenberg said.

But the Games for Windows Live experience will not be limited to Vista, he added.

“We’re definitely keeping our options open around bringing this to other versions of Windows as well,” Greenberg said.

Sounds like Real Soon Now to me. Christopher Grant at Joystiq has a little fun with the Vista requirement and the unwillingness of the the editors of the official Games for Windows magazine to upgrade.

Finally, because there are few things more continuously amusing than Microsoft’s Live branding, what’s with the capitalized LIVE? Xbox Live wasn’t capitalized as recently as January in press releases (e.g. here), but apparently some critical branding transition took place starting in March. In any case, it certainly seems less than smooth as does the hyphenated name, “Games for Windows — LIVE.” Of, course, if they left out the hyphen think of the branding crisis that would have resulted from “Games for Windows LIVE.” Then of course there is always MSN Games with its own separate identity and achievement system, but I digress.

Speaking of Microsoft acquisitions, a graphic reminder that they don’t always turn out to be super successful is that Microsoft this week also announced the retirement of FoxPro which they acquired in 1992 for $173M:

We have been asked about our plans for a new version of VFP. We are announcing today that there will be no VFP 10. VFP9 will continue to be supported according to our existing policy with support through 2015 (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=7992). We will be releasing SP2 for Visual FoxPro 9 this summer as planned, providing fixes and additional support for Windows Vista.

Additionally, as you know, we’ve been working on a project codenamed Sedna for the past year or so. Sedna is built using the extensibility model of VFP9 and provides a number of new features including enhanced connectivity to SQL Server, integration with parts of the .NET framework, support for search using Windows Desktop Search and Windows Vista as well as enhanced access to VFP data from Visual Studio.
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To reiterate, today we are announcing that we are not planning on releasing a VFP 10 and will be releasing the completed Sedna work on CodePlex at no charge. The components written as part of Sedna will be placed in the community for further enhancement as part of our shared source initiative. You can expect to see the Sedna code on CodePlex sometime before the end of summer 2007.

FoxPro (actually Fox Software) has had a storied role in PC software history, but a despite a loyal following, it was clearly being eclipsed by Microsoft’s other tooling. See Robert Shelton’s blog and Alan Griver’s blog for informal tributes and nostalgia from within Microsoft.

The previous rumors were confirmed today as Microsoft formally announced the acquitisition of Tellme Networks:

Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. Microsoft and Tellme share a vision around the potential of speech as a way to enable access to information, locate other people and enhance business processes, any time and from any device. Combining Tellme’s talented people and expertise in high-volume voice services with Microsoft’s platform, resources and worldwide customer reach will inspire new and innovative solutions.
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Tellme is a leader in voice services for the phone, including its popular mobile search services on 1-800-555-TELL. Founded in 1999, the privately held company answers millions of calls every day for information such as finding local businesses, driving directions, sports scores, stock quotes, weather, news, movie show times and more. Businesses use Tellme’s voice services and platform to provide customers with voice-access services ranging from banking to package tracking. These services are built on Tellme’s voice platform that analyzes caller requests to continually improve the system’s accuracy and overall caller experience.

Potential areas of development resulting from the deal will range from hosted voice-enabled customer service solutions that complement Microsoft’s existing unified communications offerings to voice user interfaces in existing Microsoft products to search services on mobile phones that integrate with Live Search for mobile offerings. In addition, developers and partners will be able to build new speech-based solutions on top of a scalable, standards-based voice-enabled applications platform.
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Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2007. Tellme, which has more than 320 employees, will continue to operate from its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters as part of the Microsoft Business Division. Following the closing of the acquisition, the Tellme business is expected to be maintained, and members of the Tellme executive team and staff are expected to join Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Don Dodge says that voice/mobile search is the target market as does Om Malik who has other interesting buzz about the deal including a price tag between $800M and $1B, the expectation that the Tellme executives will stay on, and an estimate of Tellme’s non-glitzy but lucrative automated call center business at $100M per year.

It’s another one of those computer vendor eyeball auctions, but unlike with Dell, Microsoft beat Google on this one - Microsoft Toolbar to Go on Lenovo Computers:

The Microsoft Corporation reached an agreement on Tuesday with the Lenovo Group to pre-load Lenovo computers with a toolbar of Microsoft’s Windows Live online services including Web search, the two companies said.

The agreement between Lenovo, the world’s third-largest PC maker, and Microsoft replaces a similar deal the Chinese computer maker had with Google, the leader in online searches, to pre-load its toolbar on its desktop and notebook computers.

The agreement will set live.com, Microsoft’s customizable news, information and search engine site, as the default home page for Lenovo PC users and add a Windows toolbar inside the PC’s Internet Explorer browser.

Lenovo, of course, purchased IBM’s PC unit in 2005 to complement their strong Asian business. As Steve Ballmer said at the time of the Dell deal, “everybody has got to decide at what level they want to … pay to play,” but there is no word on the terms in this deal nor, as is common with all such deals, is there likely to be.

One more thing - for fans of Windows Live branding, the sidebar of the formal press release has links for MSN Live, MSN Live Beta, and MSN Toolbar which all point to Windows Live properties. A typo or a sign of things to come?