Live Mesh and the new Microsoft

Quick yes or no question:

Does anybody think MS will make a big success out of LiveMesh? They have other brilliant offerings such as Silverlight (and yes Rome wasn't built in a day) but adoption is still mainly limited to the  technically literate. At present LiveMesh doesn't serve a gret deal of purpose to a very large proportion of the population, and this is what MS is using to stay relevant. Don't misinterpret my words, I think the idea is great, it's just I question the timing:

• At present not many people need the basic feature
• By the time developers have made tools is it possible that somebody else will have arrived with a truely multi-platform solution?
• I can see one of the most promising things for a technology like Live Mesh is the new lines of UMPCs and other road warrior second PCs- however at present they don't run on Linux or Mac, yes Mac support is planned, but Linux and devices like the EePC won't run this whilst MS hasn't really broken mainstream consciousness yet with the UMPC- personally I think the form factor still needs some changes.
• Will this sort of thing be in the next Windws release? If not I can see something else doing the same and getting all the attention.

Just some concerns, I can understand the numerous reasons for not supporting Linux including the fact that many would turn their noses at any MS product for some reason, but I can't help feel I am not the only one who thinks this like many great MS products could get wrongfully overshadowed by a Google App for instance and this is the thing that is praised as keeping MS relevant!

Other examples:

• MS Live image search- best UI out there by a long way, barely known about
• MS Live Video- great preview funcionality nobody paid any attention to
• MS Vitual Earth- a brilliant GUI and fantastically useful features- rarely used by anybody I know

MS is very good at building on past successes but I don't see much that will definitely keep them relevant in the near future, I hope I am wrong but I think many people rarely see the brilliance of this company and it saddens me.

@northerngeek

In response to your "quick" yes/no question,.... YES!

Have you seen Ori Amiga's video? It's much longer (53 mins +) and more technical but shows some great real world possible uses of Mesh that I think you'll find exciting.

Were you able to sign up for the Technical Beta? You really need to use Live Mesh to appreciate it...

Cheers -Nic

A quick thought from a guy on the product team (me) in between running around at web 2.0: We're trying to get ahead of the game with the platform here and build the foundation for the next wave of killer software + services apps/scenarios.  We're already in a world where many enthusiasts and business users have at least a laptop and a smart phone, if not more devices.  And we're already in a world where services are working very hard to extend to the client -- working offline, integrating with the start menu, running in their own window (vs stuck in the browser).  Likewise the client guys are all making sure they can integrate with services.  So from a platform perspective it's clear that the need is real today and growing in the future.

Our goal for the platform is to comprehensive (software + services, reach + rich, online + offline, etc) while still keeping it simple, open and accessible to a broad range of developers.  Getting that right is not trivial.  We are starting to get feedback this week at web 2.0, we'll keep getting feedback over the next several months and work quickly to iterate and get a developer CTP out there.

As for the devices we support, we demo'd Mac and WM6 live at web 2.0.  We want a broad range of device support, some of it we'll build oursevles, and some of it we'll hopefully see work from the community to fill in gaps.  We are betting that our focus on open standards makes community support feasible.  For a hint of possibilities, see http://www.clariusconsulting.net/blogs/kzu/archive/2008/04/24/61728.aspx .

Thank you both for your prompt replies, it is looking like I will like mesh, it lives up to many of my expectations of a Microsoft product. I hope my fears of it being overlooked are proved wrong! I didn't get a beta but I am still very impressed. Good luck -now let's just hope developers get to grips with it sooner rather than later.

Very impressed.

@northerngeek check out http://www.sharemesh.com/

The wait list on sharemesh.com is way too long.