Windows Live Mesh is by far our most compelling beta Software + Services solution for empowering your every day life.  I shared several benefits with TechnoGranny earlier this year. Live Mesh extends the power of the Cloud onto  your desktop and devices by enabling  you to automatically sync files with people and their machines.  .

Why use Mesh in your professional business life?

At Microsoft, I use Live Mesh quite extensively to share material with my colleagues because I love the fact that i don’t have to VPN/RAS into my corporate network. Although, now with Windows7 DirectAccess, the old days of VPN problems (lack of public IP address when traveling in a hotel, slowness and cumbersome connection initialization) have gone away.  But the benefits of Mesh have not, here are some scenarios that I use quite often:

1. Sync documents with your team. Share and synchronize team documentation and post alerts and announcements with the team. As you can see, the beta has the look and feel of Windows in the Cloud, and yes, you can definitely end up with a cluttered Live desktop for those of you desktop shortcut fans:
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2. Work offline. Because Live Mesh is truly an S+S solution, you can extend leverage the power of Windows and continue to work with your documents offline.  When you reconnect with the cloud, your documents will automatically sync back up to the server.

Why use Mesh in your personal life?

1. Back up  your cell phone photos! I have Mesh on my phone and have it set to automatically back up the cell phone pictures I take. Although I have recently moved to MyPhone for backup, this feature is still one of the coolest demos to show. Stand in front of a roomful of people, demo’ing Mesh on the PC with a big screen behind you projecting your machine screen. Open up the  mesh folder for your cell phone picture sync.  As you are talking to the audience, take a picture of them with your cell phone. Suddenly they will see a picture of themselves pop up on the screen behind you, as I demo’ed with students back in February:
2. Socialize & Share multimedia automatically. Most of my family lives many many server hops away and sharing large photo and video files over email doesn’t make a lot of sense.  With Mesh, I can create a folder and invite them using their Windows Live linked email addresses. Then they can subscribe to that folder on their desktop and any time I drop a file into that folder, it automatically gets synced!

Why use Mesh as a student?

Earlier this year, I presented to a couple hundred high school prep students and demo’ed Windows Live Mesh. At the end of the session, I asked their feedback on what they thought of the technology and how it would be applicable in their lives. This is what they told me:

1. Collaboration on group homework
2. Field reporting /journalistic type activities
3. Working online/offline when you travel a lot on planes
4. Staying in touch & sharing video with families who may live in second world countries that have bandwith, yet not financial means to communicate

Mesh is definitely one of those products that has scores of uses, both professional and personal. In the next post for this series, we’ll walk through the setup process.