Beyond Windows – The Cloud as the Hub of Social and Device Mesh

This week, Microsoft has made the first step into a new era of its evolution, one that takes it beyond its traditional business model, focused almost exclusively on the desktop, the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite. After he took the title of Chief Software officer from Chairman Bill Gates, together with half the responsibilities of the Microsoft co-founder, Ray Ozzie has set the company on a new Software + Services course. The first consistent taste of Microsoft's S+S future was served with the Live Mesh Technology Preview, which went live on April 22.

"The Web is the Hub of our social mesh and our device mesh," Ozzie stated in a memo published by Microsoft as Live Mesh was introduced to the world. "The web is first and foremost a mesh of people. Elements of this social mesh will be a first-class attribute of most all software and service experiences, as the ‘personal’ of the PC meets the ‘inter-personal’ of the web. [...] To individuals, the concept of ‘My Computer’ will give way to the concept of a personal mesh of devices – a means by which all of your devices are brought together, managed through the web, as a seamless whole. After identifying a device as being ‘yours’, its configuration and personalization settings, its applications and their own settings, and the data it carries will be seamlessly available and synchronized across your mesh of devices."

Microsoft is embracing the cloud with open arms, but at the same time, the signal is that the company will remain anchored on the desktop. This is the essential equation of Software + Services, as the Redmond giant needs to permit end users to grow towards mesh concepts such as linking, sharing, ranking and tagging, while at the same time retaining the familiarity of File, Edit and View. In the end, what Ozzie is building with Live Mesh will span across the entire ecosystem of hardware and software products delivering Connected Development, Connected Business, Connected Productivity, Connected Entertainment and Connected Devices. Everything from the Windows client to Windows Live, and Windows Mobile, to Zune, Windows Media Center, Xbox, Mediaroom and MSN will have its place in the Live Mesh platform.

"We've made tremendous progress in our expansion toward Software + Services, from the long-term quests we've undertaken and customer scenarios we now envision, to the great services and service-enhanced software we've begun to bring to the market, and the amazing projects at various stages within our development pipeline. In light of all the work that we're doing, it's important that we build a shared sense of what Microsoft's path looks like in this transition toward Software + Services," Ozzie added.

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