Microsoft building a family of Live Mesh applications
One of the first deliverables from Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie's Startup Labs will be a set of Microsoft-developed applications that build on top of Live Mesh.
Istartedsomething blogger Long Zheng posted over the weekend a preview of what a Live Mesh application might look and act like. But it seems Microsoft is building not just a demo app, but several real, live Live Mesh applications. The company is using the Live Mesh software development kit (SDK) that is expected to be unveiled at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in late October to develop these apps.
There's a bit about the new Microsoft-developed Live Mesh applications embedded in a post on the Microspotting blog, which profiles Reed Sturtevant, Director of Microsoft's Startup Labs. Sturtevant said that as of July 2008, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Startup Labs unit had hired 12 people. The Labs' mission, according to Sturtevant:
"We’ll take ideas and concepts from within the company and figure out how to move these products through the early stages of creating a new business. Evaluate them. Work on prototypes. We’re focused on the early stage, but with permission to ship.
"We’ve been asked to focus on two things: products that will attract a large enthusiastic audience, and to help drive new strategic platforms. So for example we’re using the Live Mesh SDK and building a set of applications on top of that."
What's interesting about these applications, as Zheng pointed out in his recent post, is they sound as if they'll on the desktop or in a browser -- not so differently from the way Web applications are designed to work with Google's newly introduced Chrome browser. From Zheng's post about the demo Live Mesh "Tracker" application he saw recently:
"The same demo Mesh application “Tracker” - a simple to-do list app can be run from both the Mesh desktop in the browser and on the actual Windows desktop as a (sort of) real application. To achieve this run-everywhere application experience, the Mesh apps on the desktop actually run inside a chromeless Internet Explorer wrapper provided by the Mesh Operating Environment."
The Mesh Operating Environment, or MOE, as explained by the Softies, is "a service composition runtime that provides a unified view of all Live Mesh services and a simple way for applications to interact with Live Mesh. MOE is everywhere—it’s on all devices in your mesh (as 'client MOE'), and it’s in the cloud ('cloud MOE')."
What kinds of consumer applications, beyond a to-do list app, would you like to see Microsoft deliver for Live Mesh?
Update: As noted in the list of PDC sessions, the Microsoft Live Mesh SDK will enable developers not only to build new Mesh apps, but also to Mesh-enable existing apps. From the PDC session list:
"The Live Mesh cloud services and client platform provide powerful FeedSync-based data synchronization capabilities, device P2P and cloud-relay communications, pub-sub infrastructure, and an extensibility model for applications. This session describes how you can take advantage of the Mesh developer platform, protocols, and APIs to mesh-enable your existing and future web services and client applications-allowing you to target unique new scenarios and reach new users."
Update No. 2: One reader notes that a mention of the forthcoming Live Mesh apps is now part of the Live toolbar. Here's a picture:
