Microsoft’s Mesh Network Plans

Microsoft has been pushing hard at the mesh network. Announcements made by the Redmond giant has spanned multiple media, devices and will hopefully translate to several products. At the heart of this grand vision is the concept to bring computing to the masses, essentially encompassing a series of devices – handhelds, desktops, laptops etc. It is cloud computing as it should be.

Mesh Network

The Mesh network seeks to make computing personalized, centrally configurable with applications accessible over the web independent of the devices on which they are accessed. This is about taking web applications to the masses. Taking this mainstream at Microsoft is the Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.

There is a lot that Microsoft has missed on the web front. Foremost among them is the importance of advertising on a medium of information dissemination where wide-spread adoption is the primary driver and pricing is a hindrance. Microsoft has been highly successful in the packaged software business model, but that is not how the business model on the web works. Nevertheless, Google has proven how the trickles from advertising when scaled to global proportions can be a strong revenue model. Add to that the threat of channeling the capital to other software services and the OS giant has since been looking to top the Web game.

Mesh Products

It is at the Mixx Developer Conference, that Microsoft has been very focused on its vision of a mesh network where cloud based services will help consumers access their favorite applications off any personal computing device. Having been a winner in the enterprise space, Microsoft is trying to woo the individual consumer in perhaps creating a model that would perfectly synchronize the work and personal environment.

Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet writes about all things Microsoft and she has elaborated on Microsoft’s mesh based products and services. At the heart of the cloud computing initiative is the Microsoft Sync framework that will provide online offline synching ( a la Google Gears?). Then there will be the other cloud services such as online database, and of course Microsoft does have a host of web applications already running under its Live services tag.

Add to these the “other” mesh products such as Mesh Connectivity Layer and the project to bring wireless connectivity to rural and urban areas and you begin to get a feeling that Microsoft is into a lot when it comes to taking cloud computing mainstream. Its about when all the act comes together.

Then there are the partnerships with Sun Microsystems on the data center front and software with services pitch to enterprises. The question is whether all these can be synchronized to provide clear-cut utility and an enriching user experience.

Arun on March 24, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed