Microsoft today released a Live Mesh client for the Mac and for Windows Mobile 6.x clients, although you will need a Windows Live ID to use Mesh even from your Mac. With Mac and Windows Mobile added, Live Mesh is starting to fulfill its potential. Take a photo with your Windows phone and have it easily appear on all the other supported devices or otherwise share content between your PCs and gadgets while leaving backups in the cloud. Not that this is perfect. Microsoft has a long way to go before Live Mesh will appeal to anyone other than the mostly Windows user who occasionally needs to access files from a Mac.
But it doesn’t take much vision to see the future of Microsoft’s cloud computing clearly. Add Live Mesh to Microsoft’s newly announced enterprise cloud computing initiate, Azure, and the company’s plans to have Live ID support OpenID, and you can start to see it the day when an enterprise IT department can issue PCs, Macs, cell phones and other devices and let the cloud take care of getting the user’s choice of applications and the user’s data to any device, with little-to-no-support from IT required.
But much work development needs to be done before that utopia appears. According to an article from PC World:
“Unlike MobileMe, Live Mesh for Mac is not designed specifically to sync data from Apple’s applications (Mail, Address Book) between computers. Instead, it is designed to share the files in The Finder, so it is possible to Sync up the files that support applications (such as Address Book’s).”
As it stands, it is possible to build a Mesh app using MobileMe, but not a MobileMe app using Mesh. But that’s one of the reasons Microsoft showcased Live Mesh to its developers — to encourage them to see the opportunity and start coding.
To check out the new Live Mesh clients, log on to your preferred device, your Mac or Windows Mobile phone, head over to the Mesh web site, login via Windows Live and click on “Add device.” Look for the link called “Limited Mac Tech Preview now available” or “Use Live Mesh for mobile devices” and follow the installation procedures.
Also see:
- Microsoft settles cloud complaint for $22M to avoid EU antitrust probe
- US lawmakers raise a red flag over Microsoft’s $1.5B investment in G42
- $15 billion deal with Microsoft boosts Intel’s chipmaking vision
- Microsoft’s AI ambitions fuel $3.3 billion bet on Wisconsin data center
- Microsoft Build 2024: Cloud infra updates include Cobalt 100-based VMs, access to Copilot in Azure
