14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is unveiling the first line-up of applications built for its Live Mesh synchronization environment. The MeshPack was developed by the Microsoft Startup Labs as a set of programs designed to integrate seamlessly with Live Mesh. While Live Mesh Beta is opened to the general public, MeshPack can only be accessed by the participants at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles at the end of October. Undoubtedly, Microsoft is attempting to attract third-party developers to build code tailored to Live Mesh.
“My team develops prototypes and product concepts, and we’re learning a lot about new and emerging Microsoft developer technologies. One of the platforms we’re working with now is Windows Live Mesh, the platform on which we built the MeshPack apps,” revealed John Burkhardt, a researcher at Microsoft Startup labs in Cambridge, MA.
MeshPack is composed of four applications, according to Mary Jo Foley: Collaborative Crossword, CorkBoard, MeshLists and CrowdVote. At this point in time, writing programs for Live Mesh is nothing short of an experimental endeavor even for Microsoft. Even the Redmond company doesn't seem clear on the possibilities delivered by a platform which offers a combination of a synchronization model via FeedSync; cloud storage, as well as network connectivity management, message routing. Burkhardt describes Live Mesh as a unified computing environment which is designed to bridge and synchronize data and software across a variety of devices including PCs, Macs and mobile phones with the cloud, permitting access independent of location, as well as delivering, sharing and collaboration capabilities.
“We’re still learning what we can build with the Live Mesh platforms. Our early experiments are very promising. Mesh makes it easy to build applications that are integrated with the connectivity of the Internet but that can break out of the browser to take advantage of native device capabilities. We’ve had a lot of fun so far, but we can’t wait to dig deeper and create compelling products and experiences that Live Mesh can enable,” Burkhardt promised.