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Microsoft Startup Labs delivers its first four Live Mesh apps

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Corporate strategy
Development tools
Live Mesh
PDC 2008
Research
Silverlight (wpf/e)
Web 2.0
Windows Live

One of the tidbits that got lost in the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) shuffle was the quiet delivery of a set of new applications Microsoft has built to showcase Live Mesh. Microsoft is calling this first set of applications -- developed and delivered by the company's Cambridge, Mass.-based Startup Labs unit -- the "MeshPack." (Startup Labs, allegedly one of Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie's pet projects, is focused on building primarily consumer-focused projects/products in a more agile way.) As Microsoft officials detailed in a presentation during the PDC, there are four applications so far in the MeshPack:

Collaborative Crossword: A crossword puzzle designed for multiple users to solve together
CorkBoard: "Bulletin board for the digital life"
MeshLists: A list creation/sharing tool (which doesn't seem to be the same as LiveLabs' Listas)
CrowdVote: A collaborative group-polling tool

All four applications use feeds for information sharing/viral distribution. The Collaborative Crossword application also makes use of the Silverlight user interface and Silverlight Mesh libraries. The other three were built using JavaScript. The MeshPack applications are real, working applications, not just sample code. But they are also designed to show developers inside and outside Microsoft what kind of new applications are possible by building to the Live Framework, which the company fleshed out at the PDC. In a posting to the new MeshPack blog, Startup Labs Researcher John Burkhardt said:

"We’re still learning what we can build with the Live Mesh platforms. Our early experiments are very promising. Mesh makes it easy to build applications that are integrated with the connectivity of the Internet but that can break out of the browser to take advantage of native device capabilities. We’ve had a lot of fun so far, but we can’t wait to dig deeper and create compelling products and experiences that Live Mesh can enable. Stay tuned!"

Anyone out there started dabbling yet with the Live Framework to build a new Live Mesh app -- or to "meshify" an existing one?

posted by Mary Jo Foley
November 11, 2008 @ 6:51 am

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