Microsoft has unveiled its latest web service titled Live Mesh that has been created to link a number of devices and applications online. Live Mesh is being viewed by many as a crucial plank in the company's vision for the future of the web and has been designed to blur away the boundaries between running software and storing data on a desktop and ‘in the cloud’.

 

Amit Mital, who is general manager of Live Mesh, remarked that Live Mesh would ‘connect and bring devices together, to work in concert’. The introduction of the new web service, Live Mesh by Microsoft positions the company against other companies such as Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com that are already proffering different variations of the so-called software-as-a-service systems.

 

This move comes at a time when Microsoft is busy with a bid to buy the internet giant Yahoo and underscores just how significant the web has become to the firm. In the past, Microsoft has been hugely criticized for its unclear attempts in the online space and for trying to tie the use of Windows to the web. Devices are how one connects in the new web-savvy world, pointed out Mr Mital.

 

Adding, he said that people use many devices like PCs, laptops, media devices, phones, digital picture frames, game consoles, music players and the list grows at every CES. Live Mesh, therefore, can be used to create an online network of these devices, from a user’s PC to their mobile phone. Microsoft says files and folders like documents, music and photos, can be synchronized online on Live Mesh and accessed via a web browser.

 

Live Mesh is also designed to facilitate the sharing of media online between different users. Mr Mital states that Live Mesh, which is a software-plus-services platform will enable PCs and other devices to 'come alive' by making them aware of each other through the internet. Users will have 5GB of personal online storage and unlimited peer-to-peer data, for synchronizing information between devices.