Microsoft unveils its web vision

Microsoft has lifted the lid on a new web service called Live Mesh, designed to connect a multiplicity of devices and applications online.

The service is seen by many as a key plank in the company's vision for the future of the web.

Live Mesh is designed to blur the lines between running software and storing data on a desktop and "in the cloud".

Microsoft's Amit Mital said Live Mesh would "connect and bring devices together... to work in concert".

Live Mesh pits Microsoft against companies like Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com which are already offering different varieties of so-called software-as-a-service systems.

It comes as Microsoft is engaged in a bid to buy rival Yahoo and emphasises just how important the web has become to the firm.

"We may be seeing signs of a Microsoft that is newly focused," Jonathan Yarmis, a vice president and analyst at AMR Research, told Reuters news agency.

He added: "This is exciting because it has as much to do with who is doing it as what Microsoft is doing."

Microsoft has long been criticised for its unfocused efforts in the online space and for attempting to tie the use of Windows to the web.

While initially offered for Windows XP and Vista users, Microsoft has said Live Mesh will also be rolled out to Apple Macs and other platforms.

Mr Mital, general manager of Live Mesh, said: "Devices are how we interact in this new "web-connected" world and we use a variety of them, including PCs, laptops, media devices, phones, digital picture frames, game consoles, music players and the list grows at every CES.

"However, as we discover, adopt and use more of these digital devices, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the people, information and applications we depend on in sync."

Microsoft says Live Mesh can be used to create an online network of devices, from your PC to your mobile phone.

Files and folders, such as documents, music and photos, on those devices can be synchronised online and accessed via a web browser.

Live Mesh is also designed to facilitate the sharing of media online between different users.

"This new software-plus-services platform enables PCs and other devices to 'come alive' by making them aware of each other through the internet," said Mr Mital.

"We aspire to bring together Windows, Windows Live, and Windows Mobile by creating seamless experiences that span these offerings," Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, wrote in a memo to staff this week.

Users will have 5GB of personal online storage and unlimited peer-to-peer data, for synchronising information between devices.

Web 2.0: More than just a number?

Could Web 2.0 become "Web squared"?

That was the conundrum raised by the man who actually popularised the Web 2.0 moniker that many have grown to love and hate in equal part.

But during internet veteran Tim O'Reilly's keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, he looked back over the past five years to demonstrate that the "baby we built with technology is growing up and it's starting to go to work".

He told the assembled audience of developers that the web was more than just a fun place to hang out and catch up with friends on Facebook or MySpace.

As proof of the "maturation" of Web 2.0 technologies, Mr O'Reilly described how they were increasingly interacting with the world through the use of sensors.

As proof, he cited the Google search application that predicted where flu would hit next, an energy metering aggregator called Amee and an internet sensor that Twittered people automatically when their plants needed watering.

"We are starting to see a co-ordination of these sensors. That is the future," stated Mr O'Reilly, the founder of O'Reilly Media, which organised the conference along with TechWeb.

He then told the audience that this led to a formulation "moving beyond Web 2.0 as it really engages with the world, it really becomes something profoundly different and we are calling it Web squared".

At that point, a slide came up with the words "Web 2.0 + World = Web Squared."

Alive and well

Certainly the Web 2.0 title is one that even Nate Elliott, a principal analyst for Forrester, feels is sounding tired.

"Yeah, it's time to call it the Web 7.0 conference or what about 9.2," he joked.

Co-conference chair Jennifer Pahlka from TechWeb acknowledged that the title definitely seemed to get under people's skin.

"There is a contingent of people that are tired of the word. Are people tired of the concept? I don't think so and I think many, many people are only now discovering the concept," she told BBC News.

Mr Elliott agreed that there was a lot still going on and that the name should not cloud that.

"Web 2.0, as a set of ideas, is alive and well," he said.

"There are still a lot of challenges around that we haven't solved and you see a lot of interesting discussions at this event where people are trying to solve those problems. But Web 2.0 has a healthy future to look forward to regardless of what it's called."

Ms Pahlka was a bit more vocal.

"Look, I don't really care what it's called. I care that people understand that delving into this concept and building businesses and applications and products out of it is a way we can innovate in our economy.

"And we desperately need innovation now."

The 'power of less'

With the lagging economy looming large over this Expo, it more than explains the reason for the theme of the Power of Less.

The number of attendees and exhibitors was down by around 20% but Ms Pahlka said being forced to go back to basics and think more simply was a good thing.

"If you choose a path of less, whether that's less cluttered design or a simpler business model, it helps you focus on what you are doing.

"You end up finding the constraints of less provides this enormous creativity, this enormous opening and these business opportunities for you."

As an example of that, Ms Pahlka referred to Twitter.

"Twitter is a classic example of the 'power of less'. It has a slim design. It's a company that does only one thing - it allows you to send 140-character messages.

"All the other features their users have requested they have said let someone else do them, this is what we are doing and we are going to do it really well and an eco-system has evolved around that approach," said Ms Pahlka.

Mr Elliott said that while he understood the need for businesses to hunker down and go into survival mode, he was disappointed that he was not seeing more cutting edge innovation at this year's Expo.

"When I look around, I see ideas, but I see less people shooting for the moon. I see more people trying to get the ideas that already exist right.

"Of course it's important to keep innovating and to keep finding those big ideas. We are waiting to see what will come from this recession and we are hearing from all sorts of companies that they have to focus on results, on accountability and making sure every dollar spent is spent wisely."

With such a serious backdrop to the conference, Mr O'Reilly ended with a call to arms.

"We need to create more value than we capture. In our financial system there were a whole lot of people who said: 'Wow, I can get a lot for myself.' This is really a tale of how collective intelligence can go awry.

"We know that this wonderful flowering of innovation is something that we have created together. I want you all to take that as your mission to continue to create, to invent and to make value for this challenged world of ours."

Google introduces phone services

Google has strengthened its mobile services with the debut of a service called Voice that could be a challenge to Skype and other phone firms.

It lets customers make cheap international calls and gives them a speech-to-text feature for voicemail.

The services are available thanks to Google's acquisition of phone firm GrandCentral which gives users a lifelong universal phone number.

"This could be big. Google is seen as disruptive," said analyst Jon Arnold.

"They are a wild card in telecoms and wireless but this is Google and they are very smart at what they do.

"The core of Google's business is search and for a long time the industry was concerned about the GrandCentral acquisition. What was the fit? What was the motivation? It will be interesting to see where they ultimately go with this," said Mr Arnold, principal of analyst firm J Arnold & Associates.

Table stakes

Google Voice is the first major update to GrandCentral, which Google bought for an undisclosed sum, thought to be $50m (£36m) in 2007.

The service gives subscribers one number that lets them route all their phones through - home, office and mobile.

Users also get a single voicemail account regardless of which phone messages are left on.

Google Voice is the latest attempt by the company to reach out beyond online search and advertising.

Domestic calls will be free but international calls will require users to set up a Google Checkout account. Calls to landlines in the UK will cost 2 cents per minute.

EBay's Skype offers free domestic and international calls made over the internet from one computer to another, but there is a charge to landlines and mobile phones.

Skype president Josh Silverman told analysts and investors that "chat and voice will become table stakes". He also revealed that the company is adding 350,000 new users a day and is on track to do more than 100 billion calling minutes in 2009 alone.

Google does not view the service as a threat to Skype or other telecom companies any more than its Google Talk offering, which lets users chat over the internet for free.

"This is about allowing your existing phone to work better," said Craig Walker, now group product manager for real time communications at Google and co-founder of GrandCentral.

"It's not that we are replacing your phone, we are giving [it] the ability to work better," he said.

He declined to say how many users had signed up. Google Voice is currently only available to former GrandCentral users.

"Chore"

Google Voice also allows all voice messages to be turned into text which will then be sent either through an e-mail or an sms.

"Voicemail can be a pretty negative experience for a lot of people," said Mr Walker.

"Now it's about putting the user in control. We will transcribe voicemails and convert it into text and put it in your inbox so that it's searchable and you will always have a record of that voicemail.

"Voicemail need no longer be the chore it has been in the past," he declared.

Mr Walker demonstrated its search capabilities by displaying the 1,000 or so voicemails he had accumulated while testing the system over the past few months.

By typing "pool man" in a search box, he located an old voicemail from December 2008. Returned results were in both text and audio form.

"I would never have been able to find that number. The phone company deletes everything for you after a couple of weeks and the scrap of paper I wrote the number on is long gone. This feature makes your voicemail a pretty powerful tool," said Mr Walker.

Opportunity

Google boss Eric Schmidt said he viewed mobile as the next big opportunity.

At the recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco, Mr Schmidt said he believed mobile search revenues would over take those on a PC within a few years

"The fact of the matter is that mobile devices are going to be the majority of the way that people get information," he said.

A report in February by the Kelsey Group suggested that "about 20% of U.S. cell phone subscribers are on the mobile web right now and only about 5.2 million are doing searches".

Mr Arnold said that if Google perfected its speech-to-text feature to other languages, all bets were off.

"This could be very powerful given the globalisation of markets. Language is another barrier and when you break that down, the world of communications opens up and globally this has exciting opportunities," he said.