Comments on Why does everything suck?: Microsoft Bets Against The Cloud With Mesh

Joe, I fully understand that mesh is also an API. ...

2008-04-29T16:12:00.000-04:00

Joe,

I fully understand that mesh is also an API. But mesh will fail if the consumer facing piece fails so at this point the API is not meaningful.

I am not sure what you mean though by saying it can *host* applications. There is no facility in mesh to do anything other than provide synch services, which to me is not hosting, but merely providing an API. Hosting would be letting an app live in the MS cloud which mesh doesnt do.

Not sure you quite understand what Mesh is. For a...

2008-04-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

Not sure you quite understand what Mesh is. For a start files *are* synchronized to the cloud as well as your devices. Cloud only access would suck.

second, this is not a file synchronization system. File Sync is just an application of the technology. This is more of an abstract data store in the cloud that can be written to and read inside applications. Those applications will receive events when the data is changed, by another device or by another user on the same shared object.

All of this plus the ability to host applications on the virtual desktop running in the browser.

So far I'm impressed. I think the people that aren't haven't really grasped it yet.

For routine noncreative information stored in docu...

2008-04-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

For routine noncreative information stored in documents, sure, maybe it will work okay. The world actually does need a better way to synch calendar information. Anything of real importance, though -- and the people creating it -- I suspect won't match the MS target market and Mesh won't be what they need.

I've spent years doing everything I can to be outside Microsoft's target market.

Interesting, I saw it and thought "I WANT THAT."I'...

2008-04-25T14:30:00.000-04:00

Interesting, I saw it and thought "I WANT THAT."

I've built web sites and various tools to provide shared document and collaborative workspaces for users and the thing I constantly run into is that people just don't use them. They have the files on their local computer and only use the online repositories as an afterthought. Usually calling someone in the office from the road and asking them to put the file onto the site so they can get to it.

I've always wished for the ability to have people's local documents transparently synching with their laptops and the web repository or whatever.

There have certainly been attempts at this. WebDAV is one of the most transparent, but not terribly intelligent. Groove does the synching but is a locked environment. The Live Mesh looks like it has a lot of potential.

It's too little too late. If Microsoft had made th...

2008-04-24T23:14:00.000-04:00

It's too little too late. If Microsoft had made this a few years ago, maybe it would have taken off. But it's the generation where everything is already stored online. Microsoft decided to come join the party a few years after it started.

Well, yes you are right. We don't actually know wh...

2008-04-24T07:13:00.000-04:00

Well, yes you are right. We don't actually know whether it will *work*. I guess I really meant to say most sophisticated. Because they have a *lot* going on under the hood and 100 engineers working on it. But indeed that does not necessarily translate into robust.

"This is certainly the most robust synchronization...

2008-04-23T14:06:00.000-04:00

"This is certainly the most robust synchronization system that has ever been implemented"

Umm... is anyone in a position to say this yet? This is Microsoft we are talking about, after all.