Microsoft launches `Live Mesh' for PC-cell phone data link

Mumbai: Microsoft Corporation has started trial launch of 'Live Mesh', a new technology that could give people access to data stored over personal computers, anywhere, anytime, over the phone.

The new programme, which promises to let people connect their PCs and hand-held phones in an online "mesh" for sharing documents, photos and other files using an internet connection, would help Microsoft expand its footprint in the online world.

Live Mesh, the brainchild of Ray Ozzie, who replaced Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as chief software architect, will now be limited to 10,000 US users and computers running Windows operating system.

Over the next few years, Microsoft plans to extend Live Mesh to mobile phones, computers from Apple Inc and other devices connected to the internet.

Live Mesh will also let friends and colleagues collaborate and share documents more easily. Documents can be instantly updated and made available on any device or computer that the user has registered with Live Mesh.

Users can access Live Mesh using a Windows Live ID login. Once they add a computer to their Live Mesh, they'll be able to access the PCs through a special icon in the Windows task bar.

They'll also be able to access the contents of a mesh from a web browser, or through a special "fly-out" pane that will appear adjacent to the Windows Explorer file-browsing feature on the Windows PC desktop. By clicking on a folder users can add it to a mesh.

Microsoft plans to release Live Mesh in a widely-available test, or "beta" version before the end of 2008.

"As our industry has evolved because of this web-catalysed services transformation, so too has Microsoft," Ozzie said in a memo to the company's employees.

The idea, Ozzie wrote, is to connect PCs and devices "using the web as a hub," adding, "We aspire to bring together Windows, Windows Live, and Windows Mobile by creating seamless experiences that span these offerings."

The core service from Microsoft is "a small slice, a small sliver of what the platform can do," said Amit Mital, general manager of the Live Mesh team. "What the platform is about is providing access to all this capability" for use by other software and hardware developers.

Microsoft is also setting up Live Mesh to let outside developers write programmes to work with the system.

Mital said Microsoft also plans to explore the ides of including a Microsoft Xbox game console or Zune music player in a Live Mesh.

Live Mesh uses the "cloud computing" technology in which information is centrally stored on websites rather than on local devices, giving users easy access from any computer.

Live Mesh may signal a watershed for Microsoft which has seen rivals like Google Inc and Salesforce.com encroach on its turf with competitive offerings delivered over the internet.