New York — Following the footstep of its arch-rival Google, software major Microsoft Corp. appears closer to wrap up its’ less than successful ‘Office Live’ product into its less than successful ‘Windows Live’ product under the Kumo name, presumably to allow the increasingly cash-sensitive firm to contain costs.
Microsoft outlined the decision to integrate as a way of “simplifying the customer experience around our Live services”. The company confirmed last week that it will combine its Office Live and Windows Live services into one unified online portal, but did not offered a specific time frame for the move and declined to provide any other information.
“Microsoft announced the decision to combine Windows Live and Office Live, that includes Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business, into an integrated set of services delivered through one single destination,” Microsoft said in a blog post on the Workspace Team Blog attributed to Kirk Gregerson, product manager for Office Live Workspace.
The company is not making any changes in the development cycle or the leadership of the teams working on the products, but it assures that consumers will be able to get to both sets of services from a common Web location.
Microsoft’s affirmation comes after a ZDNet blogger unveiled last week that Microsoft planned to integrate the services into one set of offerings when the next wave of those services is released.
At present, the services are offered through two separate portals Windows Live and Office Live. Office Live services are related to Microsoft’s Office software, while Windows Live are applications and services that is more closely align with functionality in the Windows OS.
However, Microsoft has repeatedly refused to comment on whether its Live moniker would now be changed to Kumo. That is despite the fact that WHOIS last November revealed that the firm had re-routed Kumo.com to some of its Live Search servers.
“We do not comment on rumor or speculation,” a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement.
Office Live, which exist in beta, was made publicly available about ten months ago and now has four million people signed up to it, according to MS.
Gregerson said the company has simply responded to customer feedback, many of whom have informed Microsoft they want all its Live services — which includes email, IM and storage — to be available under one roof.
“We think that just makes a ton of sense and goes a long way toward giving you a simpler, richer, better service that allows you to do more with one account,” he said.
Kumo is a Japanese word that has multiple meaning like “cloud,” “ceiling” or “sea spider” among others, according to an online Japanese-to-English translation service.
In an e-mail from its public relations team, Microsoft said the upcoming change does not affect current product cycles for its Office Live and Windows Live services, and the company will have more to share about specifics of the change “at a later date.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft also confirmed on Friday that the Windows 7 beta availability was getting an extended run. Testers will be able to download it until 10 February.
The public beta went live earlier this month, but Redmond servers buckled under the strain of demand forcing the firm to delay the code’s release by a day while it laid on more backend infrastructure.
Although it did not responded to clarify whether last week’s job cuts affected the Windows Live and Office Live teams, the company said there were no changes to the top ranks of either group.
The news of integrating the two services was first reported by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley.