Live Mesh

Live Mesh is a platform for developers that enables rich experiences for users. The task they set out to solve was how to create a solution that enables seamless movement from PC to Web to phone. Windows Azure is the foundation that many services are going to be built upon - Azure is their "cloud computing" operating system. Think developers renting computational cycles, a la Amazon S3. Windows Live Services is built on top of Windows Azure, and there are 460 million users who use Windows Live services at least once a month. They want Live Mesh to be the "last mile" platform, the one that will unite a disparate series of platforms, everything from entertainment platforms like the Xbox and PS3, to mobile platforms like Windows Mobile, Android, etc.

Figure 18: Live Mesh is a platform upon which many Microsoft services are going to be based.

Users want rich experiences; "Me Sync" (meaning all the stuff you want on every device you have), "We Sync" (meaning sharing the things you want to share with other people), and anywhere access - the user being able to access anything they want, on any device. He mentioned in passing the idea of a user having applications available on any device they're using, which is a fascinating concept. Not that you'd be able to use Photoshop on your phone, but that Live Mesh could serve as an application layer, giving you access to an application such as Photoshop on any computer the person is using. They had five guiding principles: put users at the centre of their digital world, make all the devices act as one (the mesh), make it easily accessible, making it social, make it an open Internet standards platform. They seem to be executing on all of those so far, though there's clearly a long way to go.

Live Mesh is going to be mainlined into Windows Live in a couple of different ways, and come Windows Live Wave 4 (Wave 3 was the one just released) we should see Live Mesh technology in more places. I asked about FolderShare (now dubbed Live Sync) and SkyDriv, and the eventual integration of those two since it's such a no-brainer. I was basically given the "wink and a nod", meaning this is clearly something that they're thinking about and likely moving towards.

From an applications perspective, there are some interesting possibilities - we were shown a video of a demo of a BBC application called the iPlayer that combines the idea of the Mesh with the content. The mobile implementation was particularly interesting - you can tag videos, and they're added to your mesh, which is downloaded to clients, allowing for local playback of video content - and even resuming playback on one device from the same point on another device where you paused it. This is all still early, but there are some game-changing possibilities here for Microsoft if they can execute it all properly.

Wrapping It Up...

After the final session, we headed out for the first ever Mobius roller skating event - and all I can say about that is that there were many people falling down over and over again. This Mobius was definitely the most bruising! After working up an appetite roller skating we headed out for dinner, and Mobius was a wrap. My evening ended up taking a turn for the worse with coughing fits, and it's only this past week that I'm more or less back to normal (hence the primary reason you're reading this Mobius summary so late). Got questions? Fire away - I'll answer what I can.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He hopes he'll be healthy for the next Mobius event he's invited to.

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