A lot of excitement about the announcement of Live Mesh this week. It is interesting to see this collection of services put together tying user content, devices, and social circle together in a web enabled experience. My favorite part is the news pane where you can see recent activity stream.

Since the announcement, I’ve been asking myself, what is the key problem that Live Mesh is trying to solve?

• Is it remote access?
  I am not sure if that many people want to access their machines remotely. I see the need for anywhere access to content but not to given physical machine. If the content is available somewhere else that would suffice. Also remember, not all computers are left running 24/7 or connected through cable internet, this is definitely not the case in many countries
• Is it data sharing?
  There are a lot of services that does that today. You upload something to SkyDrive then share it with others. The news part is neat though.
• Is it data collaboration?
  Hmm, I think we are on to something here. An internet scale collaboration service is one attractive feature of the Mesh. Enterprises have it easy with SharePoint, but when it comes to end users and small businesses. Having data delivered to different people to work on is needed.
• Is it data synchronization platform?
  While Microsoft Sync Framework gives you that tools to build something like the Mesh if you wish, no body with limited resources can build such service. It is a huge undertaken for even large companies. That said, Live Mesh builds the backbone for a global sync infrastructure that enable application developers to work against local store and leave to the Mesh the task of moving the data to other end points. I’ve not looked deeply into the details of the platform yet, though.

I am really interested to see more details coming out in the next few months about the Mesh development platform. Let’s keep watching the Mesh as it unfolds…

Update: Just to let you know, I left Microsoft to start a new company, Raveable Hotel Reviews. See Examples: Romantic Hotels in Myrtle Beach, Top 10 Hotels in Seattle, Kid Friendly Hotels in Miami, Best Hotels in San Francisco, Hotels with in-room jacuzzi  and Best Hotels in Chicago. Your feedback is welcome on twitter.com/raveable, raveable blog.