News

posted on 23 April 2008 05:10

Microsoft is developing Live Mesh, a virtual online desktop with online storage, which can be seen and used on any Mesh-connected device. Upload your files to Mesh from one device and they can be seen and accessed from any
other Mesh device in your Mesh network.

Applications in the Mesh cloud can talk to each other in the sense that an Excel spreadsheet updated in on Mesh device instance can be seen in a separate Mesh device instance. This is called app syncing, although it's really app data syncing. The mchanism is a 2-way RSS-type feed, FeedSync, between application instances.

Files are actually uploaded into a folder on the online Mesh virtual desktop and then can be seen by any other Mesh device, currently only running WindowsXP and Vista, in your Mesh network. The aim is to connect any Windows end-point, e.g. Windows mobile devices, plus Mac desktops and, presumably Mac mobile devices. Possibly also Xbox game consoles, digital picture frames and you name it.

Naturally Microsoft wants to encourage developers to build Mesh-enabled applications and has Mesh APIs for storage services, membership, sync'ing and peer-to-peer communication. There is also a Newsfeed function to tell users the status of their different folders and who’s accessed them.

A closed live preview beta is running now. It has 5GB of data per user and unlimited peer-to-peer communications at no charge.

The driving force behind Mesh at Microsoft is Ray Ozzie.

EMC's PiWorx, currently in beta, looks as if it will offer similar services.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}