Not a criticism per se, but when I saw the title of this post, I had a "Lisa Simpson Moment:" I know what each of these words means, but when you put them together...
Windows, Live, Essentials, 2011, Out.
I hope I get it now. Windows is the OS, Windows Live is not the OS but "The collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft", Windows Live Essentials is "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other Windows Live entities." and Windows Live Essentials 2011 is a release of Windows Live Essentials, so Windows Live Essentials 2011 out means that:
The 2011 release of "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other entities that are part of a set of services and software products from Microsoft that are branded to tie in with the OS" has been released.
The way that each word in "Windows Live Essentials 2011" segments the brand neatly from left to right makes it feel like it was designed by a marketing ontologist who sees everything as part of a great pyramid of brands and expects customers to view everything in the same way and not as individual products with their own identities.
There has to be a word better than "Essentials" for Microsoft to use in this branding context. Because all I can think about is how, if these things are what Microsoft considers "essential", are they not included in the base install.
The reason for excluding essential services is because including them leads to monopoly accusations.
In many countries it is illegal to ship Windows with IE preinstalled and set as the default browser. Instead, new copies of Windows offer a download window which asks you if you want to install IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera.
What's really confusing is that I used to see both "Windows Live Photo" (a hyperlink to the live photo website) AND "Windows Live Photo Gallery" (opened the application)
The thing I like about Mesh is that I feel like I have control over my files and where they go. The files "live" on my hard drives and are synchronized as a service, and can be synchronized to the cloud (SkyDrive) if I want. With "Office Live" (which, unless you're using the small business service, is really just a name used to refer to SkyDrive + Office Web Apps), the documents live full-time on the cloud, and any other copies that might be floating around are duplicates.
Documents are just as "secure" in either case, since someone guessing my Live password gives them access in both cases, but with Mesh, the files are "mine."
It's mostly a question of whether you synchronization managed through the app or through a separate "service" like Mesh. OneNote is kind of an odd duck in this respect compared to Word, Excel etc. because it it autosaves and it relies on a set of files and folders rather than discrete single-file documents, so it kind of makes sense to let OneNote take care of itself when it comes to syncing. However, I like regarding my files as files in a filesystem so I can manage them that way - I'm free to easily email a OneNote section file by attaching it, or maintain the files with my own backup processes rather than relying solely on the cloud's.
In my opinion, Microsoft should ditch the Office Live branding (except for the small business version, which is entirely different) because it's confusing and it's just a semantic repackaging of SkyDrive + Office Web Apps. OneNote should delegate its synchronization functionality to Mesh. MS has some good services but they are more focused on branding everything as a discrete product with a bright, shiny name than they are in presenting users with a coherent story.
Thanks for posting this, as much as I hate MS at times, I was starting to get frustrated with picasa and have been migrating my family to use live photo gallery lately.
UPDATE: I'm not liking how Live Photo Gallery won't let you create "albums" (like picasa) instead of requiring you to create folders/copy photos instead. Is iPhoto this way too?
The flexibility of tags makes sense, but this means that I then have to type in the same tag if I want to do multiple sparse collections of photos across folders. It's unintuitive compared to the picasa/iphoto workflow of dragging photos straight into an album.
Perhaps this could work if one could drag a group of photos to the sidebar containing the tag, but then that's bending the meaning of tagging.
Overall, I don't see why live photo gallery needs to break a workflow most folks are already familiar with (raw photos in folders/albums/tags). This organization is already used for flickr, picasa, iphoto (judging from screenshots), etc.
I feel really bad knowing that from the level of polish WLE has, some poor souls working on it care and really want to feel good about their product, and are putting a lot of effort in.
I feel bad, you see, because as best I can tell WLE is a stillborn idea, and doomed to fail :(
Windows, Live, Essentials, 2011, Out.
I hope I get it now. Windows is the OS, Windows Live is not the OS but "The collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft", Windows Live Essentials is "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other Windows Live entities." and Windows Live Essentials 2011 is a release of Windows Live Essentials, so Windows Live Essentials 2011 out means that:
The 2011 release of "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other entities that are part of a set of services and software products from Microsoft that are branded to tie in with the OS" has been released.
The way that each word in "Windows Live Essentials 2011" segments the brand neatly from left to right makes it feel like it was designed by a marketing ontologist who sees everything as part of a great pyramid of brands and expects customers to view everything in the same way and not as individual products with their own identities.