Microsoft need to pull their fingers out with Windows Live cloud services

[Quactaur]

So I've just spent the last half hour trying to migrate from dropbox to windows live mesh, mainly for better use with my windows phone, but have finally given up. On the way I've discovered, Infuriatingly, that microsoft have almost perfectly set up their infrastructure for what I want, but for some unfathomable reason have left us with a hobbled system. Read on to get a feel for what's happening.

Skydrive = Online cloud storage

Windows Live Mesh = Dropbox style sync service that uses a segregated portion of Skydrive.

Windows Live Mesh uses a chunk of your Skydrive storage to sync files, like dropbox. The part of skydrive it uses is completely separate from that used by WP7 and Windows Live gallery, and any other services. What this means is that I can not open up my synced files on my windows phone, or any other phone for that matter, as the 'documents' folder used by WP7 resides in another area of skydrive .

This is stupid, and this is counterproductive. iPhones, androids, and even WP7 with third party apps all allow you to access dropbox files globally. Some even allow you to edit them, the holy grail that Microsoft have so infuriatingly missed.

You see, I started to migrate from dropbox because I had a dream. I dreamt that I could sync my 'work' documents folders to skydrive from my main machine, then edit them anywhere, from my WP to any browser through Office Web Apps, then have them readily synced back to my main machine when I got back to it. This would be an absolutely killer feature for anyone who works with documents regularly, and I tried my hardest to get it working.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's way of doing things brings on the stupid. You can edit your cloud documents from windows, a phone or a browser, but the documents are held canonically on the server, and no PC can access them as a regular file. The only way to access them is to connect to your skydrive discretely within office.

It should be obvious why this is completely unacceptable. If I want to do some work, or edit a document, I should not need to wait (and it is a long wait) for office to connect to skydrive and download the file. I should be able to edit the local file on my disk, then have it upload to the cloud as/when I'm done editing it. Let me compare the two models in an average workflow:

My (ideal) way Microsoft's Way

1 Create word document in office ||||||||| Create word document in office

2 Save document to synced folder ||||||||| 'Share' document to skydrive (leaving no local file behind)

3 Edit document in mobile/browser ||||||||| Edit document in mobile/browser

4 Open (synced) document from local folder ||||||||| Open word, click on open remote file, load skydrive folder (slowly), load document

5 Edit document on PC, then save ||||||||| Edit document on PC, then 'share' remotely, again leaving no local copy

The benefits should be apparent. I currently have a set of annotated journals on my documents skydrive, If I want to edit them, I need to 'connect' with Word. If I'm on a train or otherwise, and have no internet, then I'm out of luck. If microsoft allowed the documents folder to sync however, then provided my PC was on and near a wireless network at some point before I left, it would automatically have synced the latest version of the document to the local hard drive.

The WORST part of all this is that Microsoft have almost made it possible (through difficult, user unfriendly means) to do this. You can use map network drive to turn the segregated skydrive documents folder into a windows explorer accesible one. This is just one step away from what I want (local syncing) but is incredibly slow, and requires going through hoops to set up (you have to use 3rd party apps to find the WEBDAV url for the folder).

Microsoft keep bleating on about the cloud, and Balmer has just talked glowingly about Microsoft's "grown up" Azure service for businesses. I think they would do much better fixing skydrive to work as it should/could, especially given that most of the ground work has already been done for them.

Anyway, rant over. I'm sorry if any of this is obvious/ uninteresting, but it just infuriates me that Microsoft is sitting on such a great potential feature and time saver but refuse to spend any time on it.

Edit: Formatting.

[Joel Moya]

Thanks god I find this rant,

Is the same situation.

I was ready to move to windows live mesh from dropbox.

I pay 99 dollars for the DropBox service), this money could have been earn by Microsoft,

Great product, have remote desktop as a bonus,

But when i enter SkyDrive, with a smile in my face, surprise how all this Microsoft cloud

Technology is coming together, i see a link to go to my sync folder and i can't edit the office files ONLINE!!!!!!

a Punch in the face !%##@

That the reason i a not Completely happy with my drop box account,

In my work the proxy doesn?t allow me to use Dropbox Desktop Application, so i have to download the files

To a temp folder a load when finish, (annoying),

I though windows live mess ( Mesh) was the answer, i if they had have it right, those 99 dollars will have been in Microsoft big pockets.

Will have to wait for my dream cloud solution.