Live Mesh: you are invited!

Anyone following current trends in the computing industry would be familiar with the recent efforts by Microsoft to prevent Google taking over the world of online services. Under its "Live" brand Microsoft launched a range of services including search, maps and various collaboration tools. Most of the current Live services were already available in the market by either Google or someone else. Nothing much is innovative but everyone knows the history and everyone knows the way Microsoft work. They may not invent a lot of stuff but they are very good at taking an existing product and making the best of it. Live Mesh is one of these products. I know Sun has been working on something like this for a while now. And so are Google and Amazon!

Live Mesh is a new platform from Microsoft which utilises the Cloud Computing model. It differs from other platforms like Windows because it is web-based and very limited in functionality. Currently, it offers an online desktop where you can keep your files and folders. See the screen capture below:

It looks simple but there is no reason why it cannot have other stuff that you see on your typical desktop. Maybe in the future there will be a Start menu with Word, Excel and PowerPoint on it. There is no word on it officially but this is definitely a possibility.

Now, moving away from what may come and going back to what we currently have. Consider a common problem faced by everyone who owns more than one computer and uses them quite frequently. For example, I work on my work laptop and home desktop quite regularly. Often I start something on one PC and finish on another. My current methods of keeping files in sync include emails, USB sticks and most recently SkyDrive. You all know what a nightmare this can become when you have to find the latest version of a file. Online storage like SkyDrive is good but that requires too much effort uploading and downloading files and also there is a big “visible gap” between your local storage and online storage. When I say“visible gap” I meant to make it clear that this gap will stay there for years to come but it can appear to shrink by using something that keeps those two storages in sync with each other. Live Mesh does just that. In Live Mesh, there are devices and then there is your Live Desktop. Devices are Windows XP and Vista machines (phones and Macs in the future release). Live Desktop is the online desktop as shown in the screenshot above. Live Mesh can keep files synchronised with folders on your devices and also on your Live Desktop. You have control over how you want to synchronise your files. Personally, I like to keep files synchronised at all three places, my home desktop, work laptop and my Live Desktop. By keeping files on Live Desktop I have the option to access that file from any PC without the Live Mesh software. All I need is a PC with a compatible browser.

This is how I went about installing Live Mesh for my testing. I went to the Live Mesh website and added my work laptop in devices. This installed the Live Mesh software on the laptop. I did the same at my home desktop. See the interface below:

Then I created a folder called "Data" on my work laptop. I right clicked on it and selected “Add folder to your Live Mesh...”. Anything that I work on stays in that folder till I finish with it. When I finish work and go home. I turn on my desktop at home and Live Mesh synchronises my “Data” folder for me. This means I have the same “Data” folder with same contents on both my desktop and laptop. The important thing is that they stay synchronised and even more importantly this happens silently without any user intervention. Pretty cool!

Live Mesh is not a single user tool. It takes the same concept further by enabling you to share your data with other Live users. Microsoft already offers this with SkyDrive. However, Live Mesh enables you to have a set of files synchronised among a number of people on a number of PCs. In other words, it automates the effort required to upload a file by one user and then downloading the same file by someone else. All this happens automatically which makes it a very useful product. This makes life so much easier. I can't believe something that useful came this late in the main stream.

I must mention that Live Mesh is not just about folder sharing and synchronising them. It gives you the ability to access your devices (Vista and XP machines so far) from another device securely. It offers same level of Remote access functionality as offered by Live Messenger. I have played around with it and quite frankly the performance is poor which makes this feature unusable at this stage. I would definitely like to see improvements here.

As a closing note I think Microsoft is hitting the right spot with this product. It’s new, it’s needed and it’s definitely looking good. I would be keeping a close eye on the new features to come.