Ballmer: More 'Live' services on the way

Microsoft launched its Windows Live online service just last week. But clearly, the software giant has big plans for more such "Live" services tied to its other software products. On Monday, Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, told CNET News.com that the company is considering a Live counterpart to its Windows Server operating system.

Is there more that we haven't heard about yet that ties Vista to Windows Live?
Ballmer: Because Live is a service, there will be things that you will hear about all the time. That's sort of the nature of a service-based offering. So there will be things we do in Live that take advantage of Avalon, for instance.

So the Live concept will also apply to Windows Server?
Ballmer: You mean a Live service for Windows Server? Yeah, I think you could imagine that such a thing might exist. It's reasonable to say, look, we have a Windows Live and an Office Live and an Xbox live, what else gets Live and what does it look like? There's a lot of work to be done there.

Clearly, if you just look at what we have done already with identity and Active Directory federation with Passport, you start to get a Live element, if you will, of Windows Server. Perhaps the most important thing we do is to allow developers to federate their own applications running on their own servers with the rest of our cloud-based (on the network) services.