Microsoft News Tracker

Last week, Microsoft took the beta tag off their free Windows Live SkyDrive online storage service and raised the storage limit to 5GB. SkyDrive is now available to users in 38 countries. As I have observed previously, online storage services are hardly novel. If you would like even more free online storage, you can get 25 GB right now at MediaMax. Still, I suppose SkyDrive rounds out the Windows Live “user experience” and is miles ahead of Yahoo’s Briefcase which only offers 25 MB.

Last night coincident with the Windows Live Events launch, Microsoft raised the limit for their beta free online storage offering, Windows Live SkyDrive, to 1GB and made a number of minor functional enhancements.

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Microsoft’s online storage service Windows Live Folders got a new beta and a new name of Windows Live SkyDrive today:

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Yesterday Microsoft launched managed betas for Windows Live Folders and Windows Live Photo Gallery and Chris Jones, Corporate Vice President, Windows Live Experience Program Management, describes them as a step towards the next generation of Windows Live which will include a unified Windows Live suite available in a single download.

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Last night, Microsoft rolled out 3 new Windows Live betas as Nick White reports at Microsoft’s Windows Vista Team Blog:

Today our Windows Live team is releasing new betas for several Windows Live applications:  Windows Live Messenger 8.5, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Writer.  All three are now available for download.

White provides many more details on what is new, but in a nutshell:

• The Windows Live Messenger 8.5 beta provides a new Vista-like user interface and integration with Windows Live OneCare Safety Center, but there was also some unspecified backend work for future features including what looks like provision for Windows Live Folders, Microsoft’s rumored online storage service.
• This is the first beta of Windows Live Mail which is the new free desktop mail client revealed earlier this month and compared to its now defunct predecessor, Windows Live Mail Desktop, there has been a switch to the same new Windows Live UI as Messenger.
• The Windows Live Writer blog authoring client had been feared to be defunct but this new beta 2 allays that concern and among a variety of fixes and feature enhancements, it too got the new Windows Live UI.