Beta News reports that M$ is hoping to become the window to the web with its new service Live Mesh. The name isn’t doing much for me but maybe that’s because I’m ROTFL about the idea that Microsoft may allow us to “seamlessly share information”… As a Mac convert, the words Microsoft and interoperability form the definition for oxymoron. Not that Apple is much better at times with its hoohaa about iPods and iTunes.
Snide comments aside though, I’m intrigued by the idea of more interaction between applications (no more emailing stuff to myself! Hurrah!) as well as repelled by the thought that one company wants to “be the web”. In layman’s terms, M$ has finally realised that hey, we don’t all rely on M$ products anymore, (37% used Firefox in March, come on my son) so they’re going to design a “Windows for the Web” so you can synchronise (ie the latest version) your work wherever you are working. It’s even supposed to work with Safari and Firefox… So you put your photos in the mesh on your desktop, and then can access them through your iphone halfway up a mountain in Scotland. You add some comments to the photos while waiting for the rain to stop and your comments are synchronised via the mesh and updated in your desktop.
As far as I understand it anyway. At any rate, I like the flexibility. And potentially it will be easier to find everything, which makes more sense. And anything built on my favourite friend, RSS, can’t be bad! However, whether or not it will actually work out is another thing. M$ has just been so proprietary before hand, that I just can’t see them facilitating access to all the other fab non M$ applications out there. Besides, most other applications are better than M$ ones too- I mean, Firefox is just the greatest thing since sliced bread, imho and gave us such a sense of what could be done, compared to what we were told could be done. Now that’s it’s a lot easier to customise things, I get so frustrated by non-customisable products- why won’t my yahoo mail do what I want it to? And I don’t think M$ will ever give us that sense of freedom.
However, I like the idea of being able to organise stuff by subject rather than by format- something that we should do in libraries. Who cares if it’s a print journal article or an e-print- I just want the information. SFX has started in the right direction with this, but there’s a long way to go. We may also have to surgically remove cataloguers from their obsession with format too…
