It looks like Microsoft is going to relaunch Windows Live in June at its TechEd conference. Unlike the initial November 2005 Windows Live unveiling, which was long on vision and short on tangibles, this time around, Microsoft needs to put some serious meat on its Live bones.

Although you wouldn't know it without the diligent research from the folks over at LiveSide.Net, Microsoft has launched more than 18 Windows Live services, which are currently in various stages of test/final deployments.

You might know that Microsoft is spending money hand over fist – in excess of $500 million in fiscal 2007 alone -- on adding Windows Live data centers, coders, testers and other physical and human capital to build up its cloud of services in the sky. (During its third quarter earnings call, Microsoft had analysts thinking it was spending almost $2 billion on Windows Live. In the past couple of weeks, Microsoft execs belatedly have corrected that information.)

And if you are a Windows Live watcher, you'd most definitely know that there have been more than a few problems with Microsoft's Windows Live campaign from the outset. Confusing naming conventions are just the tip of the iceberg. (Is that the Windows Live Search service or Windows Live Search application to which you are referring when you say "Live Search"? Is it Windows OneCare Live or Windows Live OneCare?) The inability to define "Windows Live" in any kind of non-Micro-Speakish way that makes sense to the whole spectrum of home, SMB and enterprise users is another.

Microsoft has not issued any kind of publicly articulated roadmap, detailing what kinds of services have been and will be rolled out when. There still is no a single place where information on all (not just a few) of the Windows Live services resides. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Microsoft's Windows Live moves have looked Google-reactive instead of user-proactive.

At the risk of sounding like Vista tester Chris Pirillo, who has come up with two lists consisting of more than 100 Vista problems that Microsoft needs to fix before the product ships, we'll stop there.

With that introduction, what is Microsoft likely to do at TechEd around Windows Live, and will it be enough?

The fact that Ray Ozzie, the grand architect of Microsoft's Live strategy, is on tap to kick off the TechEd on Sunday night says to us that Microsoft is going to talk about more than just Windows Live programming interfaces during its annual developer/IT pro event.

A day later, Brian Arbogast, Corporate Vice President, Windows Live Platform Development, is scheduled to deliver a TechEd keynote entitled, "Announcing the Windows Live Platform." Maybe Arbogast will surprise us and use TechEd as a launching pad for some of the suite of Windows Live services that Microsoft officials have been saying for a while now that they plan to launch in June. But we're betting that Microsoft might hold off until fall to actually make available the "final" or "perpetual beta" (or whatever the favored nomenclature for 1.0 ends up being) versions of the first suite of Live services.

Microsoft definitely will talk up its developer strategy and most likely launch the Windows Live Developer portal during the mid-June confab. Providing Microsoft, third-party partner and end-user customers with a one-stop Windows Live development shop, with information on the growing family of Windows Live application programming interfaces, will be a welcome foundation for the Live platform.

However, in perusing the TechEd session list, we didn't notice any presentations that might explain in a coherent way the connection (or lack thereof) between services being built into future versions of Windows and Windows Live services. Ditto for Office 2007 and Office Live services. Most likely, this is because there is little, if any, cohesive strategy to which to point. There's a calendar service being built into Vista. Does it have anything to do with other calendaring services at Microsoft? It doesn't appear so. Is Outlook using the Windows Live Contact store (or Windows Live using the Exchange/Outlook contact store)? Sure doesn't sound like it.

We'd also like to hear more about how Microsoft's AdCenter will figure into its Windows Live and Windows Vista/Longhorn plans. Microsoft has said some of its Live services will be ad-powered. But exactly what does this mean? Right now, Microsoft has a story for what AdCenter will mean to MSN and MSN advertisers. But what about the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem? Other than the fact that it's all about search – and in spite of attempts by the company's chief advertising strategist and others to explain how AdCenter fits in – we're lost.

Regardless of what type of user/developer you are, what would you like to hear Microsoft explain about its Live strategy? What makes strategic sense for Microsoft and its customers on the subscription services front? What is little more than Google me-too-ism?

Talk back below or write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and
let me know what you think.