Dang! Silly mistake or what. This morning when I logged in to my Live Home I was thrilled to see the Wave 4 Menu. At the same moment I saw a post in Bink mentioning the Office is now live on SkyDrive!. So I rushed to http://www.windowslivepreview.com and saw the whole site is updated. Without thinking much straight went to the control panel and uninstalled all my current Windows Live tools.

After that just before clicking the download button on the new site saw the message … ‘Newer version of Windows Live Essentials will be available soon … bla bla bla’ … good kick for me for not reading and rushing to get the new version.

Anyways Skydrive is updated and few bits and bobs. Not sure when the desktop tools are coming. I just finished re-installing the good old Live Essentials and seems like going to have to wait a while to get my hands on to Wave 4.

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

Read the full article @ http://www.microsoft.com/azure/whatisazure.mspx

SkyDrive: 25 GB of free online storage

If you are looking for more information Windows Live Wave 3.0 check out what Paul Thurrott has to say in his SuperSite.

• Windows Live Wave 3 Preview
• A Look at the Windows Live Wave 3 Applications
• Making Sense of Wave 3, Part 1: How We Got Here
• Making Sense of Wave 3, Part 2: Windows Live Services
• Making Sense of Wave 3, Part 3: Windows Live Essentials
• Windows Live Profile Preview
• Windows Live Hotmail Preview
• Windows Live People Preview
• Windows Live Photos Preview
• Windows Live Groups Preview
• Windows Live SkyDrive Preview
• Windows Live Wave 3 Screens
• A Look at the Wave 3 Applications
• Windows Live Calendar Screens
• Windows Live Wave 3 Preview
• Wave 3 Beta Screens
• Windows Live Wave 3 Leaks

Windows Live Hotmail just now got a face lift. this new UI is much faster than the previous and it looks cool.

Finally :)

By Heather Havenstein
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9082558&intsrc=hm_list

Web 2.0 software developers ranked Microsoft's MSN/Live Windows developer program higher than competing programs offered by Internet leaders Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Facebook and PayPal, according to results of an Evans Data Corp. report released today.

The "Users' Choice: Web 2.0 Developer Programs" report is based on the results of a survey of more than 400 developers, who rated developer programs from the seven companies in 13 categories, including API functionality, blogs, marketing assistance tools/SDKs, Web services, documentation, support and forums. The Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. programs were ranked right after Microsoft Corp.'s. While the recent opening of Facebook's development platform has garnered lots of attention for the social network, it ranked next to last among the seven Web 2.0 development programs included in the survey. Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. also ranked higher than Facebook, with all of them ahead of last place PayPal Inc.

Microsoft scored high in user satisfaction for its Web services, software development kits, documentation and forums. In the Web services category, Microsoft came in on top this year after ranking last in the year-earlier survey.

"As Microsoft moved from the relatively closed-in MSN portal to the more Web 2.0 savvy Windows Live collection of services, users have begun to recognize it as a provider of top-notch Web services," according to the survey.

Google ranked second among the surveyed developers by scoring high on API functionality, available marketing assistance for Web 2.0, a solutions directory and options for ongoing communications like RSS. Yahoo ranked third in overall developer programs, dropping from its second-place finish in last year's Evans survey. The researcher said that Yahoo benefited from what users called strong technical resources. EBay dropped from third to fourth place in this year's ranking, with lower grades for its Web services program. The online auctioneer did get strong marks for the functionality of its APIs, marketing assistance, forums and SDKs. Facebook ranked sixth out of the seven developer programs in its first year in the survey. The most highly ranked feature of the Facebook program is the functionality of its APIs.

"While the company's API functionality is rated very high by developers (placing third among the field of seven), Facebook lacks the support resources to help developers," the study said. "Facebook fares poorly among users of its APIs for the available documentation, marketing assistance and ongoing communications. While there is tremendous interest in the Facebook social networking platform, Facebook still has not capitalized on the buzz by providing the supporting information to continue driving developer interest."

The report went on to note that Microsoft and Google allow users to profit the most from the applications they develop, through their integration capabilities and lack of downtime. According to Evans, 26% of developers using Microsoft's MSN/Live programs said they have generated "significant" profits from it, while 23% said the same for PayPal, 15% for Amazon, 13% for Google and 10% for Facebook. Meanwhile, 38% of developers said they had not benefited financially from using eBay's developer program, while 36% said the same for Yahoo, 33% for Amazon, 27% for Google , 20% for PayPal and 9% for Microsoft.

Developers say they have had the most difficulty integrating their applications using the Facebook technologies -- 77% said they had experienced at least some degree of difficulty integrating Facebook technologies with their apps. Facebook was followed by eBay and Yahoo as the hardest to integrate. Only 40% of developers said that Amazon technologies are difficult to integrate, while 45% said the same of Google. The companies that developers said offer the strongest integration capabilities are Microsoft, Amazon and Google.