mesh

I'm seeing a lot of interest in Microsoft's Live Mesh, a file-synchronization service and long-term vision for data-sharing across devices that the company announced at the Web 2.0 conference. It's an interesting vision, although it rehashes some basic ideas that Microsoft's been throwing around for at least seven years. (See this story from 2001: "Microsoft envisions HailStorm as a way for consumers and business customers to access their data--calendars, phone books, address lists--from any location and on any device." Substitute "Live Mesh" for "HailStorm" and it's back to … Read more

Microsoft pushed out a tech preview of its Live Mesh service, but is still holding back on delivering a more complete set of Office applications delivered from the cloud.

At this point, Microsoft has delivered Dynamics CRM as an on-demand, multitenant hosted service as well as hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Tim O'Brien, senior director of platform strategy for Microsoft, said this week, "We have a huge portfolio of applications that we'll over time take in this direction," meaning that Microsoft is rearchitecting much of its software for multitenancy to run in its growing number … Read more

As with most core strategies at Microsoft, Live Mesh has a strong platform angle.

At the Web 2.0 Expo on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled Live Mesh, a cloud service for synchronizing files, folders, and Web-delivered content, such as news feeds, across multiple devices.

Along with giving people access to a test version, the company offered a tech preview that will allow developers to access the Mesh APIs to write Web applications with the data-syncing features.

People have long said Microsoft doesn't "get" the Web or is too tied to its desktop heritage. Well, part of the PC … Read more

For years, Microsoft has maintained that the PC is the center of the digital home and office.

But Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said Tuesday that it's time for the company to acknowledge a new reality.

"Over the past 10 years, the PC era has given way to an era in which the Web is at the center of our experiences--experiences delivered not just through the browser but also through many different devices including PCs, phones, media players, game consoles, set-top boxes and televisions, cars, and more," Ozzie said in a memo to be sent to employees on Wednesday (PDF). … Read more

On Tuesday, Microsoft officially spilled the beans on its Live Mesh service for synchronizing data and connecting multiple devices. If your eyes are glossing over from all the mentions of seamlessness, synchronization, and software plus services, here's our best attempt at making sense of things.

What is Live Mesh? At its most basic level it combines downloadable software and a cloud-based service to synchronize and share data and applications among different devices.

How does it work? In large part, it uses the notion of feeds to go beyond a Web site and also to describe both data and devices. … Read more

The Live Mesh service that Microsoft unveiled Tuesday night is a peek of what Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has been working on all these months.

In its initial incarnation, Live Mesh is mostly a file-sharing and folder-synchronization service, as well as a nice, easy way to access a PC remotely. Down the road though, it's Microsoft's latest attempt to find preeminence in a world in which Microsoft-based devices are just part of the mix.

As previously noted, the version that launches Tuesday is limited considerably from the broad service Microsoft envisions. (See Ozzie's recent memo to Microsoft employees for the big vision.) … Read more

Microsoft is announcing Live Mesh today in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo. It's an ambitious technology platform for sharing data among people, apps, and devices. Consumers will first be exposed to the technology in a personal data synchronization and device-sharing product of the same name, competing directly with products like LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, SugarSync (review), Syncplicity (review), and Microsoft's own FolderShare, and SyncToy.

We tried the technology preview version of the app. As a sync tool for PCs, it's got good potential. It is easy to perform the basic operations of adding PCs to your sync … Read more

While Microsoft eventually hopes its Live Mesh effort will be a way for people to share data across all of their devices, the service that launches next week will be limited in several ways, CNET News.com has learned.

Next week, Microsoft will launch a pre-beta "technology preview" open to about 10,000 testers in the U.S., according to a source familiar with the company's plans.

File synchronization is an important component of Mesh, but not its only feature, the source said. Developers will be able to write their own applications for Live Mesh, with the … Read more

SAO PAULO, Brazil--Well, I know one thing I'll be doing once I return from Latin America.

In my in-box Saturday morning was an invite for an April 24 event in San Francisco, where Microsoft plans to offer more details on its Live Mesh service. Ray Ozzie first hinted at the project during his speech at last month's Mix event in Las Vegas.

Live Mesh is expected to be a service that synchronizes data between a number of different devices. Microsoft has talked about a long-term vision in which you need to only store things once, in the cloud, … Read more