I have often wondered why I have the same music set separately on my home desktop, my laptop and my iPod. I mean, we can always have one centralized server for all media and then stream the media itself to different devices. At least within the home. While in college, I have even flirted with the idea of building such a system myself. Not a very complex one, but one that will simply allow me to access all my music and video in any of my rooms in my house. I later imagined adding Plasma screens and Bose speakers to all the room and selling such platforms and becoming a celebrity entrepreneur. That I didn’t go beyond the first few steps is a different story. But the thought has always lingered in my mind. At times, I saw myself building on it - Why not have a network that could stream all your data to whatever device that you have, to wherever place you want to. It seems like Microsoft has stolen the idea already.

So, here comes the new of Microsoft entering into Cloud Computing via Live Mesh. Read this blog post by Amit Mital, General Manager at Microsoft for a view of how Microsoft likes to introduce Live Mesh. Amit writes,

This new software-plus-services platform enables PCs and other devices to “come alive” by making them aware of each other through the Internet. Our goal is to provide a “just works” experience by making it much easier to access the information, applications, people, and devices you care about.

 

Our design goals for Live Mesh are to have…

 

· …your devices work together

 

· …your data and applications available from anywhere

 

· …the people you need to connect with just a few clicks away for sharing and collaborating

 

· … the information you need to stay up-to-date and always be available

 

We’re achieving these design goals by combining the power of ‘cloud services,’ with the convenience and rich experience of your many devices.

You can also see this wonderful video of how it works.

New York Times reported on this,

On Tuesday evening Microsoft described 15 components of the new Live Mesh service, including a notification feature, a news feature and an information window displayed by the service, but only two user-oriented applications. One synchronizes files on multiple computers. The other, Live Mesh Remote Desktop, is a free software service that will permit users to control computers and other devices over the Internet.

Mark Stahlman, a research vice president at Gartner, said

“This is a pretty significant public statement that the battle is really a cloud battle. It’s not an ad search battle or a desktop operating system battle. Those are fought and won already. This is the one that’s wide open.”

So, basically, what Microsoft is aiming is to port the entire array of software+service on the web. Yes this means, accessing your data from anywhere. Yes, it also means accessing you applications from anywhere.

In his article on Cloud Computing, fellow blogger Om Malik had detailed how five clouds will be all that we will need for all our computing needs in the future. An insightful article. However, I was surprised to find the name of Microsoft missing. Microsoft is not known to lag behind. I was sure while we are talking about all this, Microsoft is upto something to launch itself big into Cloud Computing. I was right, it seems.

So why is Cloud Computing important to Microsoft? Well, a couple of reasons. Windows is already the dominant operating system. People have been shouting about the death of Windows and the emergence of Linux for years now, but nothing actually materialized. With services like Zoho and Google Docs, it was predicted that all the applications will soon be moved online. There won’t be any need for the user to install any application on his end. That has not happened so far and we are still figuring out if at all, can the online applications replace their desktop counterparts altogether. Now, it’s clear that there will still be devices. Actually, a lot of them. And data will be shared between all of them. How we access them will be an issue. Windows is not needed to be done away with. Windows can stay, as all those devices still need an operating system. But a large component of that operating system will now be a Mesh operating system. And the desktop component will only be a client-kind smaller part. Microsoft is already into different devices (Xbox, Zune etc) and is continuously trying and testing new innovative technologies. It’s important that Microsoft be present, as a platform whenever Cloud Computing takes off.

As discussed before in our featured article Microsoft-Yahoo-Google : Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai, with the acquisition of Yahoo, Microsoft is already planning to include media capability to its forte. So now, visualize this. Microsoft develops the technology (which it already does). Has complete control of media that gets viewed (if it gets Yahoo), has the devices where we host all our data (PCs, Xbox, Zune) and now, also owns the platform for information access and management (Live Mesh).

Wow! One heck of a plan! Kind of completes the loop. If Microsoft gets the Live Mesh done, we will be moving our entire data under Microsoft’s technical specialization (supervision?). Definitely not a bad thing for Microsoft at all. Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction. The plan to get into all domains of information creation, management and delivery is what constitutes Microsoft’s plan now. And yes, the Live Mesh platform will be an open one. They have already announced the introduction of a Mac version. And as always, heavy support for the developer community can be expected soon.

Whenever the Cloud Computing wave takes off, Microsoft’s Live Mesh will be one service we will be using to cruise on. At least that’s what I gathered from yesterday’s announcement. Don’t know what some of my non-Microsoft-loving friends have to say about this.

Leaving you with a few screenshots of Live Mesh. Click on the picture to open the full image.

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