A year in review: 2010 has been both interesting and surprising for me. In this recap of July to December, you will get to know why.
- July 2010
- On July 1, 2010, I found an e-mail in my inbox having the subject: “Congratulations 2010 Microsoft MVP!” I got awarded with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Live expertise, and I took great delight from getting to know this.
- The Windows 8 documents leaked by a HP employee have consequences on people spreading the leaks. Among others, some Live Spaces are closed.
- August 2010
- The new Hotmail Wave 4 version is now enabled for all users worldwide. It introduces features like Sweep, Active Views and viewing messages in conversations.
- Windows Live Essentials gets a new beta refresh. It adds correct Gmail handling to Live Mail as well as Facebook Chat to Messenger.
- September 2010
- The public Internet Explorer 9 beta starts after 5 Technical Previews. The user interface has been renewed and made much sleeker.
- Both the emergency service Microsoft Vine and the notification system Windows Live Alerts are shutting down.
- The Windows Live team announces its partnership with WordPress.com to transition all Windows Live Spaces until March 2011, including automatic content migration.
- On September 30, 2010, Windows Live Essentials 2011 is released, supporting Windows Vista and Windows 7.
- October 2010
- In the Windows Live Messenger for iPhone app, more languages, support for iOS 4 and Facebook Chat are added.
- Messenger Plus! 4.9 is published as intermediary update with limited support for Messenger 2011.
- November 2010
- Google Streetview launches in Germany for the 20 most important cities. The first village to get Streetview is the Bavarian Oberstaufen.
- You can now use Hotmail with your own e-mail address, using POP3 aggregation.
- Facebook Messages attempts to reinvent messaging regardless of its source – email, SMS or web messaging.
- mynetx.net interviews Harrison Hoffman, Evangelism Product Manager at Microsoft, about his personal thoughts regarding Windows Live.
- December 2010
- The whistle-blower website Wikileaks keeps appearing in the news. For 2011, publications concerning major U.S. banks are already announced.
- The antivirus solution Microsoft Security Essentials gets updated to version 2.0.
- Monster.com and Orbitz are the first partners to launch Active Views inside your Hotmail inbox. They are running sandboxed Javascript to provide dynamic contents while you don’t have to leave the inbox.
Summarizing 2010, how has Windows Live developed in the past year? What were the major focuses for the development team? I will shed some light on this tomorrow.