Microsoft Live Mesh Synchronizes Devices

By: Katie Cook
Published: Apr 23, 2008
Updated: Mar 17, 2010

Microsoft Live Mesh is a new service that can synchronize devices such as PCs, Macs, mobile cell phones or even printers.

Microsoft Corp. has just launched a new service called Live Mesh that lets you organize and synchronize phones, computers, files and folders so that all your key information can be available on your different desktops. If it sounds like Apple's iSync or the Plaxo service for Windows, you're right. Except Mesh, says Microsoft, will be much more.

The service idea is to get all your devices -- PCs, soon Macs and mobile phones -- working together so that you can collaborate with colleagues or just find that photo or tune from your music library on whatever devices you are using, no matter what device it's stored on.

Ever e-mailed an attachment to yourself? With Mesh you won't have to. Just open a Mesh folder, and you'll find it and any other file you want synchronized. You decide what you want to share. Want to show someone a photo you took on vacation three years ago? Use your mobile phone to open the Mesh folder and there, from the hard disk at your home computer, is the picture.

Suppose you're at work and want to run a program that you have installed on your home PC. With Mesh, you can.

You can share access to your Mesh info and files. There's a live Mesh Bar, that requires installation, that lets you set up your own Mesh networks. You will have access to your own devices as well as those of people sharing theirs with you.

It's free to use. You have a hefty 5 GB capacity from the Mesh site, what Microsoft calls "in the cloud." Microsoft is hugely excited about this. Next fall, at a big developer's conference, it plans to seriously ramp up this service.