Live Mesh: Microsoft's replacement for Windows?

Microsoft made it clear today: Its future is not in Windows or Office. Instead, it's in the Internet and computing clouds. If it can deliver on the promise of its just-announced Live Mesh, the company will be able to fight off Google, and leave Apple in the dust.

The new service, Live Mesh, is just going into beta testing, with approximately 10,000 testers. As with all things Microsoft outside of Windows or Office, Microsoft hasn't done a particularly effective job explaining exactly what it is. At the moment, though, its public face is primarily a consumer-oriented service that will allow you to synchronize all of your information across all of your devices, access information no matter where you are, share data with others, and be constantly updated about your information and the whereabouts of friends and family.

That's ambitious enough, and impressive enough. But that's not really what Live Mesh will ultimately be about. Live Mesh, above all, is a platform on top of which developers will write many different kinds of applications. Those applications won't live on your desktop; instead, they'll live in the cloud, powered one way another, if all goes according to plan, by Microsoft.

What kind of applications could be built? Potentially, any you want. Enterprise-level software, small-business software, word processors, spreadsheets, and most anything else.

At the moment, you need XP or Vista to use Live Mesh. Eventually you won't. I'm sure that when you run some version of Windows, you'll get extra benefits by using Live Mesh. At the moment, Live Mesh is one way to help prop up Windows. In the long run, though, I expect that it will run the same with any operating system.

If done right, Live Mesh could redefine the core of Microsoft's business. Rather than relying solely on selling Windows or Office, the company may turn to getting more income from selling services online. I don't expect it to abandon Windows or Office, but over time, the focus -- and revenue-- may shift to Live Mesh.

Don't scoff; other tech companies have completely redesigned themselves and done it effectively. IBM is the premier example. Only after it recognized that it couldn't survive if focused on developing and marketing operating systems (remember OS/2?) and PCs, did it finally find its way after stumbling for many years. Now it's as powerful and robust as ever.

Will Microsoft truly make the jump from selling operating systems and client software, to selling services? It's not yet clear. But Live Mesh could well point the way to the company's future.

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