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Microsoft made a giant leap in time yesterday by launching Microsoft Store on the Web, a place where users can download Microsoft software from MS Office to video games for Xbox 360. This has not come as an utter surprise since Ballmer hinted at the possibility of such a store during a question answer session in Australia. According to Trevin Chow, the Program Manager for the store, some of the benefits for this initiative are:

You pay for an ESD product just like you would for one that would be physically shipped to you. The big difference is that after your payment is confirmed, you can immediately download the product to your computer and install it right away. There is no longer any need to pay for shipping costs and waiting for the big brown truck to drive across the country. You’ll be able to enjoy your software almost immediately – all it takes is the download time of the product, which will vary depending on the size of the digital download.

The obvious fear for most users buying ESD products is not having the software on physical media to re-install the product at a later time. Microsoft Store solves this by letting you re-download the product until mainstream support for the product ends. Typically this is 5 years after the product is released. You always have the option of copying the downloaded products to physical media if you want to have it available longer than the mainstream support lifetime.

It took a long time coming, but nevertheless its there now.