More product details
I asked Payne to give us some more details about these other launches, starting with Windows Live.
"The average reasonably active social networker belongs to four different networks, has three different email accounts, and belongs to any number of other photo-sharing, blogging and other sites. When we talk to people they say ‘it's been great, it's been fun, but it's just too much for me to be able to do on a sustainable basis'," he said.
"That's why we've taken the direction we have with Windows Live and the launch of the next generation of it is imminent. We're adding a lot of things that are non-standard. For example, you can take email and add a lot of bells and whistles to it, but we've got some things that are a paradigm step on from that."
Office 2010?
"That's not really my area, but the beta has already been released and the only thing that hasn't been announced is the general availability date. It's got some very nice features in it, like a social connector tool that lights up Outlook in a way it hasn't been before - kind of like unified communications on steroids."
Natal?
"It was designed essentially as something you can add to an Xbox 360. What you saw from a distance at CES was some of the hardware that can enable it - a set of cameras and microphones that basically pick-up some of that human interaction that people have. But the magic is in the brains behind them - distinguishing people from objects and from each other."
Zune in the UK?
"Again, unfortunately, nothing I can share."
