Computing & Internet . Microsoft

What Windows Cloud Should Do … At Least

October 7, 2008

PDC is around the corner and Mr. Ballmer let the cat out with an informal announcement that there will be a cloud OS, tentatively named – Windows Cloud. Live Mesh when released was trusted to be Microsoft’s backbone for something like this. The Live brand today has almost everything to offer. From a Picture Gallery, Movie Maker, Email, Online Storage & something or the small businesses to collaborate.

Mesh added a new dimension of allowing you to sync different devices and files across them, though in it’s nascent stages. I have a feeling that Live Mesh will play an important role in the so-called Windows Cloud. Here are some thing that i as a user would want the cloud OS to do for me:

  • Merge the storage space of SkyDrive, Mesh & Office Live.
  • SkyDrive folder should be a folder inside Mesh giving me features of SkyDrive (direct download links) and Live Mesh (syncing across devices).
  • Easily move attachments from my emails on Hotmail into the Mesh folders.
  • The Office Workspace should be a folder in Mesh for quick access to files.
  • A Pictures folders: The current online picture management feature of Live Spaces sucks and the Media view in mesh rocks, so a pictures folder to upload images, give sharing permissions, something like the SkyDrive for images, similar to Flickr. Combining this to the Media view feature would be totally kick ass! Now, each album can be made into a folder and thereby we can have album/folder based permissions. Add the ability to create Photosynths on the fly would be simply great.
  • Considering that there is now a Live Movie Maker; something to put videos online, edit them on the fly and allow people to see them. MSN Soapbox but with an overhaul that makes it a lot more usable would work wonders.
  • A consistent UI throughout the individual services.
  • Maybe the option to change background image like on Live.com for having my own wallpaper.

Well, that’s all i can think of for the moment.

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13 comments
  • Gigacore has written:

    Thats a nice ideas manan… :)

  • Debsuvra Ghosh has written:

    Windows Cloud is officially named Windows Strata, I presume at PDC 08. I am looking forward to it after having a wonderful experience with Live Mesh.

  • manan has written:

    Yup, I read about that.

  • Pallab has written:

    Hmm.. honestly though I am more interested in Windows 7 demo than Windows Strata. Because I am likely to be using a whole lot more of Win 7 than Windows Cloud.

  • manan has written:

    Well, I’m looking forward to both. Not really sure of what will be shown regarding 7 and am dead sure it’s gonna be scrutinized like hell, so not concerned about it.

    7 will be what it will be and Windows will continue to dominate the desktop. It’s the online world that I’m more interested in. What MS has to offer against Google?

  • Angry Indian has written:

    Time for AI #2 to officially join the AI team?

    Here’s an invitation from me:

    http://angryindian.com/join/

    Would love to have you aboard.

  • Daniel has written:

    Have you guys seen our icloud, Cloud OS service available today? It supports a lot of similar features described above, including being able to fetch IMAP mail, drag attachments back and forth to the cloud drive, drag pictures directly from the cloud drive into the word processing application, drag uploaded business card images onto Contacts to get them associated with a person etc. It also have a feature to drag windows between friends desktops, just like having a giant virtual desktop shared with your friends (Share Window).
    For more info, see http://os.icloud.com

    Thanks,
    Daniel Arthursson
    icloud / Xcerion

  • manan has written:

    Hey Daniel! I think i did try Xcerion sometime back. Will give it a run again.

    Thanks for dropping by.

  • Saurav has written:

    Most of the ideas here were already in the pipeline to be implemented in Live Mesh from day one. The only reason they are not integrated right now because Office Lie service & Skydrive are out in there near final version however Live Mesh still has some work to do with the back end etc.

    Once Live Mesh is released in its final form, your Office Live Workspace folder, Skydrive will be part of Live Mesh Environment & you will indeed be able to save & share Live Mail;s attachments to Live Mesh.

    By the release of Office 14, Live Mesh will be updated & will incorporate features so that you can save your office documents from Office 14 to Office Live directly. The real file will be available on Live mesh in a shared folder

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