Microsoft rolls out Live Mesh preview

@Re: The future is bright...

>You aren't supposed to make serious use of it. This way, they can save cash by having insufficient storage for everyone!

Ahaa, so this will be the storage version of the ISP fiasco! "You mean you actually want to USE all the stoage space?! Well we hadn't planned on that, lets see who we can offset the cost to.."

Surely, knowing microsoft, Live Mess is a better name

Already got it (my coat)

Yeah...Right...

Live Mesh?

Try Live Hell on Earth.

As in Like Hell ill allow that on my systems let alone my network.

And what kind of a name is Live "mesh"?

I know one thing

Microsoft is not telling ANYONE what its secret weapon is. I know what it is and it will be quite a surprise. I detest Microsoft as much as anyone but they have decided to do something that the Linux, free software and open source communties should have done a LONG time ago. That's all I dare say for now.

Live Mesh to the sound of whalesong...

Live Mesh is another one of those josstick buring, whalesong listening marketing bollocks that means nothing and sounds moronic.

Its bound to be a hit then!

Mine the coat with the anti-suicide wrist guards

Yeah, I *so* want all my private data online..

Sure, I'd want everything in sync, so even when a device gets nabbed it'll stay up to date. Failing that, I naturally want such data to be online, fully protected by the fearsome Microsoft security measures who carry a sterling reputation of brilliantly talking about it in presentations to clueless VIPs.

You moved the mouse, allow/deny?

Not in a gazillion years.

Reliability

Unless Microsoft engineers have some sort of magic pill, their equipment/OS will be as flaky as any of their customers. This means we can expect a data-destroying crash scenario every couple of years, or less.

Not to mention what would happen should their MS servers get hacked ... a not-unlikely proposition.

I'm not a fan of any project that stores user data online, beyond encrypted login data and some other smallish items. 5GB of personal and/or business data is a lot to risk. That goes for Google Apps and RIM, too.

Business as usual...

It's clearly just a Web 2.0 version of vendor lock-in. This "Live Mess" will only truly work with MS-centric software (e.g., Vista OS). But wait, that implies that Vista must actually work... :-)

@I know one thing

Im sorry, I have to bite, please - stop typing now.

>I detest Microsoft as much as anyone but they have decided to do something that the Linux, free software and open source communities should have done a LONG time ago

and that would be....o right you can't tell us. Is this from fear of Microsoft's legal dept. or just the fact you're spouting utter nonsense?

Im sorry for biting, but why post that...

Paris because she spouts nonsense, but I don't mind ;)

This is all well and good

but it is utterly useless while a good proportion of people are still languishing on capped broadband plans. When you are forced to count every byte coming in and out of your network lest you hit the dreaded "your bandwidth has been slowed to 64kbs" wall then these "all your files are belong to us" schemes will be destined to fail.

If Google and Mickeysoft truly want the great unwashed masses to embrace their so-called cloud vision of the future then they are going to have to find a way to make isps play nice with consumers and let them have the unlimited bandwidth plans that are required to make this stuff useful.

Even then, it is highly debatable whether this stuff will ever be useful but that's one for another day.

world's biggest rippoff merchants are at it again

Its not Microshaft for nothing....

1} we've (MS) got this great idea, everyone can store the data on our servers for free

2) when we've got enough of em hooked we'll hold their data to ransom while we turn em upside down and rape their wallets

3] All the while the punters will have to use our software interface which will typically be totally clutzzy, poorly laid out, sadly lacking in the features department and have more holes in it than swiss cheese.

Message to the B&S show, Fu#k orf.

Skull & X bones, because the world's biggest rippoff merchants are at it again

megaserver?

This sounds like a manifestation of Bill's MegaServer vision from about ten years ago - see here http://www.theregister.co.uk/1998/10/12/microsoft_leaks_its_own_memos/

Next to be announced.. Cairo?

<sarcasm>Where did all the M$ haters go?</sarcasm>

Guys, get a grip. When did anybody else offer you a free 5 gig drive you can store anything you like on? How on earth could this be classed as being 'ripped off'?

I can see the concerns about them starting to charge for the service after a while but they have to provide some kind of notice period and that will allow you to get all your important stuff down before the pricing model comes in so your stuff will never be locked away forever.

They've been punting their SkyDrive for a while now but it offers you some amazingly high caps before any kind of pricing model is implemented. You can stream videos up to a million minutes per month for free right now and the content is delivered locally as is possible by means of distrubuted data centres.

If you're on a capped internet then the web obviously isn't that important to you anyway in my opinion. Anyone with half a NetBone in their body pays that extra couple of quid for unmetered access so download caps really shouldn't be the issue

@Giles Jones : Unpopular? proof or stfu please. one look on jobserve at all the .net jobs will show you how unpopular Microsoft Development really is. Go to some of the Flash fansites and see how majorly scared the Adobe guys are of SilverLight while you're at it :¬)

Saint Bill : For showing the rest of the world what is possible so maybe someone else can offer something even better!! Someone has to be first and at least Mr Gates has the guts to do so, and the money to back it up

It's a shame...

If anything like this product had come out 15 years ago I would've had alot more interest.

As it is...I can only see it as a likely source of pushing on us even more advertising, requests for survey responses, and a load of hidden behavioural monitoring, memory sucking, useless applets.

I buy Windows because I want an OS I can do things with, including play games (sorry, Mac-lovers - your OS just doesn't have the support), and I sincerely REALLY hope that updates and the ability to communicate with others will not require signing up to a service that is pounding advertising across my desktop...

MS open platforms

"Developers will probably be attracted to Microsoft's "open" platform offer to let them write code in a variety of flavours for Live Mesh..."

yeah, about as attracted as we all were to their "offer" of making their "open" XML a standard.

Its success will depend on how much money and undue influence they're prepared to throw at it, rather than whether it's "open" ot not.