Sorry for having been a bit lax with posting on here the past few weeks, its been a very busy time at university which isn’t really winding down yet but I thought I’d take my mind of it by writing a post.

Yesterday Amazon announced its new music service called Amazon Cloud Drive which allows people to buy music and keep it stored in the cloud to play it wherever they are. 5GB of cloud storage is free but more storage can be bought if the user needs it. It seems like a great idea and something that I have long said should exist…only I thought Microsoft or Google were going to do it first. I even wrote how Microsoft should and could combine elements of Zune.net with SkyDrive to offer a very similar service.

Since writing that article many rumours and speculations have pointed to Microsoft getting rid of the Zune brand but keeping its features. The general consensus is that Zune would then be rolled into Windows Live; the Zune client becoming something like “Windows Live Player” with companion services within the cloud. I expect that if/when the new brand is announced that a host of new features will also be announced which I hope will see new cloud based entertainment services offered. This could be through online storage of all music on a user’s PC and syncing music with all of a user’s PC via Mesh.

Then today I read an article by Mary Jo Foley in which it sounds like a new team is being assembled within Microsoft to create some kind of new experience for Windows Phone 7. The name of it is Mobile Studio, its unlikely that its just coincidence that the KIN had an extensive cloud based backup and feature rich service. Could it be then that this Mobile Studio is to be to Windows Phone what the KIN Studio was to the KIN. Possibly although I would hope that this is well on the way to happening and not only now being worked on.

One question that the Mobile Studio does bring up is that it could mean it will be a service that does not use any of Microsoft’s cloud/backup/sync services. I really hope that this is not the case, it would just be a farce if this does come to pass. SkyDrive really is an underappreciated service and Windows Live Mesh had become an invaluable piece of technology for me and many others.

Microsoft really need to have a single online location for its consumers’ data and SkyDrive should really be that service being in kept in sync by Windows Live Mesh.

But do we really need to worry that Microsoft wont see the light and not use SkyDrive? I don’t think so.

I really dislike the fiefdoms that exist within Microsoft, but sadly they do exist, but perhaps in this case good might come of it. SkyDrive is part of Windows Live which itself is part of the massive Windows team. If there is one product team at Microsoft that always gets its way it’s the Windows team. Therefore I think there is quite a bit of credibility to the rumours that a “Windows Live Player” is in the works, Windows could well have gobbled up another product/team. This can be seen with the addition of “Office” to Windows Live, surely Office would have liked the Web Apps within their own domain but Windows Live managed to get them.

If the Windows/Windows Live team are working on the replacement Zune product then it is entirely likely that Windows Live Mesh will be the service used to keep the media in sync across devices and the cloud.

That now brings me on to devices, specifically Windows Phones. These devices already backup data to Windows Live, well pictures anyway, so it only makes sense that any more encompassing backup service would also save to SkyDrive. Also if the Windows Live team were able to get the Office team to integrate their new Web Apps into the online service then they aren’t going to let the smaller Windows Phone team set up their own competing online service.

There is another device that I am sure the Windows Live team will be looking to get onto their cloud services, the Xbox. I have speculated that whatever the new entertainment service is from Microsoft that it will integrate very well with the Xbox perhaps even using the Xbox name for the online aspects of the service.

So if, as I hope, all backup/sync services for Microsoft’s consumer products do use SkyDrive and Mesh there are a few things that really need to be tweaked for it to work brilliantly. First and most importantly they need to stop splitting up the 25GB of SkyDrive into two sections, one for Mesh synced folders and one for general uploads. Currently it’s a very flawed system. If I want to sync my Photos folder from my PC to SkyDrive using Mesh I can easily set it up but then can’t view those photos within the browser via SkyDrive easily like I can if I had uploaded then via the Photos section of SkyDrive. Ridiculous. This is even more annoying with documents, I keep my University folder synced across all my PCs (3 in total) using Mesh but then can’t access the documents in the Office Web App because its in the wrong section of SkyDrive. However if I manually upload a document to SkyDrive I can view it in the Web App. Again ridiculous. There should really be a single storage location within SkyDrive that allows users to view photos and read/edit documents whether they manually uploaded or synced the files using Mesh.

A second thing that Microsoft should do is allow and push devs to use Mesh’s syncing features. This would raise people’s awareness of Windows Live Mesh and allow for a great user experience. What would be even more impressive would be if Microsoft made Windows Live Mesh clients for platforms other than its own. If people were able to keep their files, documents and application preferences in sync across Windows, Windows Phones, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android devices and the cloud it would be fantastic. If Microsoft don’t offer this kind of capability someone else will.

This is all overshadowed by the fact that Windows 8 is expected to integrate a lot more with Windows Live which only makes sense that the PC will soon be integrated with the cloud. If this happens then I hope SkyDrive has more than 25GB of storage available, I have more than that in just music. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft up the storage to 50GB for free but then charge for additional storage. I imagine that Windows Libraries would automatically sync with their respective SkyDrive sections with associated Windows Live Web Apps or desktop apps to view and edit the files.

I really do dislike the clan nature that appears to exist at Microsoft but I think that for once it might actually be beneficial. For too long various teams within Microsoft have made their own competing versions of something, perhaps now thought we will see a single product being used by all consumer teams within the company.

What are your thoughts on SkyDrive? Do you have any other complaints with SkyDrive and Mesh other than my two?