Microsoft is planning to unveil three new mobile services at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month. The software giant is aiming to move your mobile data into the cloud and rival Apple's MobileMe service.Microsoft announced the Windows Azure platform in October at its professional developers conference and will be expanding its software + services platform with several new products. According to sources close to Microsoft, the company has been working on products codenamed SkyBox, SkyLine and SkyMarket. The final offerings are likely to be named under the Windows Live branding.
"SkyBox" is a service for users to sync a phones information with the web. Microsoft will be offering automatic backup and restore services, access and management of phone data and provide easy communication and sharing with others. The service will also allow syncing of contacts, email/SMS, calendar items and pictures into the cloud, similar to Apple's MobileMe. The difference from Apple's offering is Microsoft could be set to offer this out to non Windows Mobile devices.
"SkyLine" will be aimed at small businesses. Offering similar functionality to SkyBox, businesses will be able to setup their phones with Microsoft's Exchange hosting with their own domain names.
"SkyMarket" was originally discovered in September 2008 when Microsoft advertised several external job positions. SkyMarket is the codename for Microsoft's mobile marketplace, a competitor to Apple's AppStore and RIM's Blackberry application center. This service will only be available on Windows Mobile devices and will showcase the 1000s of Windows Mobile applications available today.
Microsoft is also expected to unveil Windows Mobile 6.5 at the MWC. Neowin revealed in November that 6.5 was being tested by device partners and would be unveiled in 2009 Q1. Little details are available on the 6.5 upgrade but we can confirm that those leaked 6.5 screenshots are genuine concept shots for the honeycomb web start menu.
Neowin will be live from the Mobile World Congress next month, stay tuned for more information.
LOL - good one!
No, Mesh is not a competitor to MobileMe and no-one with any semblance of sense or knowledge on the matter has ever said that it was. You've just listened to all the other braindead idiots who assumed that was the case when Mesh and MobileMe came out.
They have an offering for WinMo phones only at http://wl.windowsmobile.com which syncs email and contacts. Its buggy though - I uninstalled it.
So many products coming from microsoft its easy to get confused...
mesh calendar, mesh contacts, mesh drive etc...
None of those actually exist. You've made them up.
The above Windows Mobile "services" are just that, services. But I do expect MS to tie these into the rest of the Windows Live services on the PC side in some form. Like using Skybox to backup you videos/photos to Skydrive works imo.
As it is right now Mesh just uses a shared Mesh specific folder that's like 5GB, but you can only use that through Mesh itself which makes it different from Skydrive as well.
What I meant to say was that they should simplify the product line.
Skydrive and Mesh both offering 5GB of storage. Why not combine both and offer the user 10GB of unified storage.
Those other products i mentioned would be easier to understand... I know that they dont exist.
The above Windows Mobile "services" are just that, services. But I do expect MS to tie these into the rest of the Windows Live services on the PC side in some form. Like using Skybox to backup you videos/photos to Skydrive works imo.
As it is right now Mesh just uses a shared Mesh specific folder that's like 5GB, but you can only use that through Mesh itself which makes it different from Skydrive as well.
I thought Azure was the cloud platform... ?
Skydrive and Mesh both offering 5GB of storage. Why not combine both and offer the user 10GB of unified storage.
Those other products i mentioned would be easier to understand... I know that they dont exist.
Fair point, but remember that Mesh is still in beta whereas Skydrive is a released product. Maybe they will combine them but Mesh is in beta for a reason - its not finished yet.
By the way, Skydrive offers 25GB these days.
Mesh is more of a app platform in that you still have to install Mesh on your PCs, macs and WinMo phones and then use it.
That's a pretty lousy way of looking at it. Why have a duplicate service if you can tailor one to handle both well?
Again, if you don't want or keep this info on your PC why bother with Mesh? Way more people have mobile phones and keep all there contact info there etc. So why not offer them a basic backup for their lists/SMS to the cloud, so then if they lose their phone or it breaks they don't have to worry.
Microsoft had Live Mesh before MobileMe. Even though it's still not finished, it can accomplish much more.
A centralized app store has existed before on Palm and Nokia devices, if I recall correctly.
If being more consumer-friendly is copying, then maybe we should stick with only one company to make everything for us.
So, which is it? Because we all know who has the hottest non-stop photocopiers in their office. I think they were "borrowed" from XEROX...
LOL. Calling MobileMe "cloud computing" is proof positive that the term has become an overused buzzword. Congratulations.
So funny that Xerox happens to make photocopiers.
Oooh looks like we got a nod from Engadget!
Also CrimsonRedMK so apple Strictly copies microsoft also so what does it matter.
Well with the current state of mobile me it won't be hard to surpass it.
Plus they're phone only, while Mesh covers the PC and Mac sync of data as well.
Sure using Mesh does this, but what if you don't want to sync/backup stuff on your phone with a PC/Mac?
In the end Mesh is a step above these "services".
Plus they're phone only, while Mesh covers the PC and Mac sync of data as well.
As does MobileMe.
The Sky idea wasn't clever, I keep thinking of skydrive when I read it.
Isn't that a good thing? They're all services in the cloud - why not make 'em sound the same?
That would make sense imo, and I hope MS does it like that. The best thing about the Live services is they interoperability between each and so on.
MS: Hey guys lets make more random services, we only have like 100 and half of them are double ups.
People: yay MS more services I love MS.
2 weeks later.
People: you remember that MS service that came out last week, I never use it, I only use hotmail or live mail.
MS: damn noone uses this stuff, lets make more.
People: I cant even find that service MS made now, sites so hard to get around!
Given that the Windows Live team have already publicly stated that they will be doing I think we can safely say that you are wrong.
MS can say whatever they like, Ill believe it when i see it.
They could just take viigo and build an RSS-based "AppStore", but they're putting lots of effort into creating a totally new "AppStore" thing.
Let's see: We got Windows Live, we got Live Mesh, we got Skydrive, we got Zune services, we get SkyBox. What's next?
How many redundant services and applications will they release until they understand that none of the services is close to perfect, nobody understands the services and thus nobody's going to use them and they just waste their time developing thousands of redundand services.
So typically Microsoft!
Can't the make just ONE PERFECT SERVICE? Can't they finally understand that people like Apple because everyone understands their products?
I wonder how much developers at Microsoft get paid for wasting their time on developing redundant services instead of working together on ONE PERFECT SERVICE.
I even wonder how much employees get paid for thinking of new ideas and new ways to confuse the customer.
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