So today at Mix08 Ray Ozzie went back to basics. If you compare the headings of his speech to that of his famous memo, there is a lot of common ground. So if you're an exec, how do you keep yourself entertained during these keynotes when repeating the same key concepts but can't start announcing product launches? Well Ozzie seems to have come up with an idea that we approve of, namely "how many unreleased product names / codenames can I fit in".
Mesh was the most obvious one by far yesterday, with several people picking up his constant references to it, see his speech notes linked above. Steve Clayton kindly highlighted the solitary mention of Horizon too, "As this product emerges just over the horizon". Given Steve is now working in this Software as a Service area, his one-line summary is pretty succinct and worth paying attention to: "...tech preview of a cloud sync service coming over the horizon"
So for all of you untrained in reading Ozzie, or conversely if you have done so too many times and actually want to see the goods (like we said, perfectionist), here's the LiveSide summary to what Ozzie said about:
Mesh (mesh.com)
- Device management, for example the reporting of location, centralised configuration and control,
- Unified data management (see below!)
- Unified application management and deployment via the web,
Horizon (mshorizon.com)
- Unified data management
- Synchronisation of files and folders across devices
-"The bi-directional synchronization of arbitrary feeds of all kinds across your devices and the Web, a kind of universal file synch." This should ring some bells - FeedSync anybody?
We often talk about the different "waves" of MSN and Windows Live services. What Ozzie talks about isn't some evolutionary update, this almost falls into the revolutionary category (its not out yet so no definites here). This is a "Wave X" compared to the "Wave 3" we're waiting on for Windows Live. Time to sit up and pay attention.
Let us know if you spotted any other codenames buried in the keynote and we'll add them in!