Just installed the public beta of Windows Live Messenger after reading about it on Pocket Lint.

It has been reskinned, and sure there are other cute features, but the install package is up to 16 meg. COME ON! People use it to send instant messages, it is an instant message client. Plain, simple, text messages.

The ‘collaboration’ machine it seems to be turning into resembles the kind of software bloating that killed ICQ (well, it was either that or the AOL acquisition, but I think the bloating came first). Who knows, though? Maybe this whole ‘Live’ strategy will pay off.

But it seems a step in the wrong direction: I’m enjoying thin client web-apps that leave my machine stable (well, within reason. I’m no (shudder) Mac User). Case in point: Google Talk is 900k and does nearly everything I want it to (if it did multi-way chat, that would be it). And it has a web interface that doesn’t require 10 minutes to load…

So, will Office 12 be bloated? Or slimmed up? If anyone at MS is reading and wants to give me a beta to try I’ll be happy to blog my opinion ;).