MAX'ing out with Microsoft

It's a good thing that I listen to podcasts in my drive-time. The latest This Week In Tech mentioned Microsoft's new MAX beta software. I hadn't heard hide nor hair of this. It appears like it's a competitor to Google's Picasa. I'll give it a spin to see exactly how it compares. One thing MAX isn't is light on system requirements. The recommended system is:

* Microsoft Windows® XP
o Home or Professional Edition
o Service Pack 2
o English only
* WinFX September CTP
* 2.4 GHz processor.
* 512 MB of RAM.
* 200 MB of available hard disk space.
* Windows Presentation Foundation capable 3D Video Card.
* Broadband internet connection.
* Microsoft Update enabled.
* Beverage and snack. The installation may take a while.

The 3D video card, broadband and MS-Update are not part of the minimum system requirements. And the system can be as lowly as a 1GHz processor and 256MB of RAM. So with all that layed out, hopefully it does something neat and does it well. Picasa is a nice piece of software and because it is completely useable even on my Win98 (!) machine at work, I find it extremely useful and it will likely be difficult to beat. Many have said that Google can't really develop any good software without acquiring it. Let's see if Microsoft can.