Some weeks ago there was MIX10 in Vegas with several interesting topics. I was inspired by the Windows Phone 7 developer experience with Silverlight and OData as open protocol for delivering collections of data as feed in the browser. There were other great sessions as well, but I missed one big thing: Live Mesh and the former Live Framework (R.I.P.) as developer portion of it.
It has been very quiet around Live Mesh (a.k.a. Windows Live Devices) in the last months. Celebrated as rock star on PDC08 and honored with several awards Live Mesh is one beautiful example of how Microsoft is unable to place great products with huge potential on the market. News on it are missing for quite a while now and developers are confused by the sudden death of the Live Framework. At this time one fact remains: Live Mesh will be part of the Windows Live Wave 4 as Windows Live Devices, but that’s it. After getting no real news on the PDC09 regarding Live Mesh and the Live Framework many people thought the MIX10 would set the stage for the new Windows Live Wave 4. I know 3 sources of people at Microsoft who were pointing to MIX10 as well when speaking about Live Mesh and the Live Framework. But their signs were wrong and again developers get disappointed. MIX10 brought not one session or info about Live Wave 4 / Live Mesh / Live Framework and that’s a shame.
I don’t know what Microsoft is planning. I don’t know when news on the Live stuff will be published. I don’t know why there are no updates on this hot topic. I don’t know where this will end. But I know and believe that Microsoft wastes the huge potential of a great developer and end user platform which could have been used as central environment of data, apps and people surrounding all devices. The bits that have been published with the Live Framework CTP on PDC08 were great and fun to use, but they have been cut off. I just can repeat it: Microsoft is really good in wasting potential…