Windows Live Calendar to go live, at long last

Up until recently, the Windows Live team was rolling out new services on an almost weekly basis. But the long-rumored Windows Live Calendar -- for some reason -- never was part of this fast-track of Live service launches.

It sounds like that's about to change, however. The LiveSide.Net site is reporting that a beta of Windows Live Calendar briefly went live over the past weekend, but is back to its missing-in-action state. LiveSide's bet is Windows Live Calendar might finally see the light of beta day the week of November 5.

Update: One source says Microsoft is planning to roll out the beta of Live Calendar on Monday November 5. Meanwhile,  LiveSide has been playing with the beta and is sharing first impressions of the positives and negatives of Windows Live Calendar.

Rumors of Windows Live Calendar's "any-day-now" release have been circulating since 2006. In May 2007, Microsoft Live team officials said to expect the Live calendaring service to debut some time in the summer of 2007.

Whenever Windows Live Calendar finally does go live, Microsoft will have some fancy footwork to do around positioning its growing number of calendar-related products and services (think MSN Calendar, Windows Calendar, Outlook Calendar, etc.).

Microsoft could end up rolling out a slew of beta and final versions of a number of Windows Live services this week, if recent tips and leaks are true. Other possible Live-related launches on the docket (according to a Microsoft presentation in France earlier this fall): A final version of Windows Live Photo Gallery, WIndows Live Writer, Windows Live Parental Controls, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail. Windows Live Events, which Microsoft still has yet to announce officially, could be in there, too....

(Windows Live Calendar screen shot courtesy of LiveSide.Net.)