Earlier this
week, Microsoft announced the availability of Live Mesh, at first for a limited
number of users, an idea that Ray Ozzie had mentioned at last month’s MIX Conference.
The mesh concept suggests a new point of interest for Microsoft, rather than
the “old” PC: the World Wide Web.
Mike Zintel,
Product Unit Manager, Mesh and Storage Platform, unveiled on a blog that the
project they have been working on is going to take competition by surprise, by
allowing users to easily manage their information by combining their computing
experiences (PCs, applications, web sites, phones, video games, music and video
devices) in the context of different communities (i.e. myself, family, work,
organizations).
”The PC era has
given way to an era in which the Web is at the center of our experiences,” say
Ray Ozzie in a memo to Microsoft employees, Information World reports. “It is
our mission in this new era to create compelling, seamless experiences that
combine the power of the Internet with the magic of software, across a world of
devices.”
Live Mesh
enables devices to work together and is in fact a software-plus-service
platform that connects devices (PCs, and soon Mac and mobile phones) through
the internet, making file sharing and folder synchronization a lot easier.
In addition to
being able to access information from anywhere, Microsoft also introduced a
“stay informed” feature which keeps track of all the activities on the mesh and
keeps the user informed of all updates: online status of friends, who updated
files or folders, check the status of his devices etc.
At first, the
service will be available to a limited number of users, in order to get the
necessary feedback and to make sure the system is reliable and responsive. At
the same time, the interface will be in English only, as the data center
hosting service is in United States (broader availability is expected within a
few months). Although only supported on Windows XP and Vista machines, support
for the Mac and mobile devices will be added.
Despite all the
openness Microsoft wants to embrace with Live Mesh however, some are still
raising eyebrows on exactly how open Mesh really is: an interesting concept,
but needs a lot of testing and work to prove a point.
