Microsoft watchers are all abuzz about an announcement the company is scheduled to make at the Web 2.0 Expo next week. It's believed that the event will be where Live Mesh launches (link redirects to boring login). A mysterious project believed to tie together a number of different technologies acquired in recent years - the best guess is that Live Mesh will let users sync files on multiple computers and mobile devices via the web.
Collaboration on documents may be a part of the product as well. It's expected to be a simple, but powerful, service. A number of questions remain, however.
Top Microsoft Live watchdog blog LiveSide has covered and analyzed the would-be product extensively and promises in depth nitty gritty as details unfold. Mary Jo Foley will undoubtedly cover the announcement expertly as well; see her interview with a Mesh-component FolderShare expat and founder of newly launched GoogleDocs-incorporating Syncplicity today.
Ray Ozzie offered thinly veiled foreshadowing of Mesh at the Mix08 conference and described a product that offered the following:
"Just imagine the possibilities enabled by centralized configuration and personalization and remote control of all your devices from just about anywhere. Just imagine the convenience of unified data management, the transparent synchronization of files, folders, documents, and media. The bi-directional synchronization of arbitrary feeds of all kinds across your devices and the Web, a kind of universal file synch."
Performance seems to be the biggest question around Live Mesh. The technology itself doesn't seem terribly unique, but if the program is able to deal with file editing conflicts and lost network connections, that will be good.
Storage size and allocation is another question that remains. It's assumed that SkyDrive will be central to the offering, but that program's 5MB 5 GB (Ha! typo) storage limit will need to change. Even double that will not likely be enough storage.
Finally, some magic previously unimagined would be nice. When Ozzie says, "Just imagine the possibilities enabled..." I can imagine that he's imagined some we haven't. What's up their sleeve?
Cross-platform functionality outside of the Windows environment may be a pipe-dream, but even so - Mesh could be a game changer for the majority of the world using said environment.
What would you like to see out of Live Mesh?
Comments
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Remote control, synchronization and access to all devices would be a dream - but one becomes even more concerned about security.
The constant pressure to innovate means that complete security has to be initially compromised during the initial releases
One just wonders when the first high profile breach will occur - and of course, the tech press will have a fielday.
But on a positive note, this technology is the future and we are getting a sneak peek into it
Posted by: * Miss Universe | April 15, 2008 10:44 AMSmall fix needed => SkyDrive has a 5 GB limitation, not 5MB. :)
Posted by: Aaron | April 15, 2008 10:58 AMI've had so much difficulty with simple network folder sharing on my home network between Vista-Vista and Vista-XP machines. There's this huge start-up time when you start copying a file, throughput always seems slower than even my internet connection let alone the faster LAN connection, and if for some reason the file doesn't want to copy it won't tell me for at least 10 minutes.
If Windows Live Mesh integrates seamlessly into Windows Explorer, then goodbye network folder shares, this'll be the way to sync files on my network.
Posted by: Dan Grossman | April 15, 2008 11:07 AMThanks Aaron for that typo catch, and thank you Dan and your highness Miss Universe for the comments.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick"What would you like to see out of Live Mesh?"
I would like to see the expressions on all the early adopter's faces when "Live Mesh" ( possibly the worst product name evah, BTW ) displays this prompt "...In order to use Microsoft Windows Mobile Mesh you must first upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1.0.4 build 1022rc1..." Then "...Windows Mobile Mesh requires Microsoft Silverlight. Do you wish to install Silverlight now?..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPrZSBf4oG0
Posted by: Todd | April 15, 2008 12:04 PMhopefully its a combo of skydrive, foldershare, live contacts, live favorites, calendar, mail search, web messenger and office live workspace ;)
Posted by: Josh Jacob | April 15, 2008 2:01 PMwatting for this new service from the microsoft
Posted by: Ajay Pathak | April 15, 2008 5:45 PMI would like to see complete failure for the project :D
They probably want users hooked on something that only works on Windows.
Posted by: Anon | April 30, 2008 1:55 AM