Microsoft Announces the Launch of Folders and Photo Gallery

Windows Live Folders and Windows Live Photo Gallery will be listed as managed beta programs, according to an announcement from Microsoft today. The Windows Live Folder, which we briefly introduced to everyone in May, is the first attempt by Windows Live at an online storage service. The beta version will offer 500MB of free storage space with a maximum file size of 50MB for each file. I had the opportunity to interview Chris Jones, Vice President of the Windows Live Experience Project department at Microsoft, where he demonstrated Live Folders and Photo Gallery to me. He expressed his hope that Folders would be used for storing documents rather than music, photos, and videos, making Microsoft's storage service more competitive.