Microsoft to take on Apple's MobileMe?
Rumours suggest phone cloud computing is heading to MWC
20 January 2009 11:44 GMT / By Stuart Miles
Microsoft could be about to announce a new rival to Apple's MobileMe service if online rumours are to be believed.
Based on news Pocket-lint bought you back in October, Microsoft is supposedly about to release a mobile version of its Live Mesh technology at Mobile World Congress in February.
According to sources close to Microsoft, Neowin.net is reporting that the company has been working on products "codenamed SkyBox, SkyLine and SkyMarket. The final offerings are likely to be named under the Windows Live branding".
In October Microsoft told Pocket-lint that it was working on an application that would allow you to share information with multiple computers and Windows Mobile devices as if you are accessing a single drive on your computer.
Live Mesh, as the technology will be known, will let you synchronise files with all of your devices, so you always have the latest versions handy.
Users will be given 5GB of free storage and be able to access files from any device or from the web, set a permission status and share them with others. Users will get notified whenever someone changes a file as well as seeing the folder and files history via a sidebar in Windows Vista.
At the time Microsoft said that Mac or Windows Mobile support would be coming.
"If you look on the Internet you can find Mac and phone support as we've seeded it to developers, however we aren't officially releasing these features to the public until next year", a spokesperson told Pocket-lint as he demoed the product.
According to Neowin.com the site confirms what we already knew: that SkyBox will allow users to sync information to handsets, while SkyLine will enable users to set up their phones with Microsoft's Exchange hosting with their own domain names. SkyMarket, first detailed in September 2008 will be the name for the company's mobile application store to go up against Apple, Android and RIM offerings.
The rumours have gathered extra pace with the confirmation that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO will be at the conference in Barcelona.
Pocket-lint will be bringing you extensive coverage in the run up to the show plus live coverage from the show floor with news, first looks, pictures and video starting from the 15 February.
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