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Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML: The Bill Gates MSOffice "formats and... - 0 views

  • 3.2.2.2. A pox on both your houses! gary.edwards - 01/22/08 Hi Robert, What you've posted are examples of MSOffice ”compatibility settings” used to establish backwards compatibility with older documents, and, for the conversion of alien file formats (such as various versions of WordPerfect .wpd). These compatibility settings are unspecified in that we know the syntax but have no idea of the semantics. And without the semantic description there is no way other developers can understand implementation. This of course guarantees an unacceptable breakdown of interoperability. But i would be hesitant to make my stand of rejecting OOXML based on this issue. It turns out that there are upwards of 150 unspecified compatibility settings used by OpenOffice/StarOffice. These settings are not specified in ODF, but will nevertheless show up in OpenOffice ODF documents – similarly defying interoperability efforts! Since the compatibility settings are not specified or even mentioned in the ODF 1.0 – ISO 26300 specification, we have to go to the OOo source code to discover where this stuff comes from. Check out lines 169-211. Here you will find interesting settings such as, “UseFormerLineSpacing, UseFormerObjectPositioning, and UseFormerTextWrapping”. So what's going on here?
  • From: Bill Gates Sent: Saturday, December 5 1998 To: Bob Muglia, Jon DeVann, Steven Sinofsky Subject : Office rendering "One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows. I would be glad to explain at a greater length. Likewise this love of DAV in Office/Exchange is a huge problem. I would also like to make sure people understand this as well." Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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    The IOWA Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust suit evidence is now publicly available. This ZDNet Talkback posts an extraordinary eMail from Bill Gates concerning the need to control MSOffice formats and protocols as Microsoft pushes onto the Web. The key point is that Chairman Bill understands that the real threat to Microsoft is that of Open Web formats and protocols outside of Microsoft's control. It's 1998, and the effort to "embrace and eXtend" W3C HTML, XHTML, SVG and CSS isn't working well. The good Chairman notifies the troops that MSOffice must come up with another plan. Interestingly, it's not until 2001, when OpenOffice releases an XML encoding of the OpenOffice/StarOffice imbr that Microsoft finally sees a solution! (imbr = in-memory-binary-representation) The MSOffice crew immediately sets to work creating a similar XML encoding of the MSOffice binary (imbr) dump. The first result is released in the MSOffice 2003 beta as "WordprocessingML and SpreadsheetML". XML was designed as a structured language for creating specific structured languages. OpenOffice saw the potential of using XML to create an OpenOffice specific XML language. MSOffice seized the innovation and the rest is history. Problem solved! So what was the "problem" the good Chairman identified in this secret eMail? It's that the Web is the future, and Microsoft needed to find a way of leveraging their existing desktop document "editor" monopoly share into owning and controlling the Web formats produced by Microsoft applications. MSOffice OOXML is the result. ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML is beyond important to Microsoft. It establishes MSOffice "editors" as standards compliant. It also establishes the application, platform and vendor specific MSOffice OOXML as an international "open" standard. Many will ask why this isn't a case of Microsoft actually opening up the MSOffice formats in compliance with government antitrust demands. It is "compliance", but not in the sense of what
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The Fall of Microsoft Office - 0 views

  • On the same day that the state of New York published a report supporting open formats for electronic documents, mighty Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) said that it would support the open-source ODF format in Office 2007. Redmond's own Open Office XML specification may be heading for the great Recycle Bin in the sky, never to come back.
  • The company's biggest revenue generator may be a shadow of its former self in a few years. I just hope that Microsoft has some alternative business prospects on tap
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    More confusion about the MS announcement of native support for ODF, with delayed support for whatever ISO finally determines to be ISO 29500; "OOXML". Damn but these guys are all twisted up about this. The truth is, ISO National Bodies traded their vote in favor of OOXML for MSOffice support for ODF and Microsoft's joining the OASIS ODF TC. It's not complicated. MS wants ISO approval of OOXML because it established MSOffice as a "standards" editor. The rest of this kurfufull is all about anti trust concerns and Microsoft's need to put htose concerns to bed before the world figures out that they are leveraging the MS desktop monopoly into an MS Web monopoly. ISO approval of OOXML is the final piece of very complex puzzle. The harmonization of OOXML-ODF is impossible. MS knows this. So why not join OASIS ODF TC if it means putting aside the anti trust claims from ISO NB's and getting that all important standardization of OOXML? Both ODF and OOXML are both XML encodings of entirely application specific binary formats. There is no possible to way to reconcile the file formats without also reconciling the applications! Incuding feature sets and layout engines!!!! Impossible!! The real game is the transition from client/server to the emerging client/Web-Stack/server model. MS is the "client" in client/server. No way were they about to give that up without a plan to control the transition of MSOffice documents to the emerging client/Web-Stack/server model. They sought to fully control the formats, protocols and API's of this new model. ISO handed it to them. The thing to watch is the MSOffice SDK where one can find a very cool OOXML <> XAML converter. XAML is totally proprietary, but "web ready". Meaning, MSOffice is a "web ready" application. It's just that the web readiness is 100% MS .NET-Silverlight. The great transition to client/Web-Stack/server is now on. Thanks to ISO. All this ODF stuff is just background noise designed to quiet the anti t
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The Mesh lives but the cloud Office is vaporous | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com - 0 views

  • Office Live will bring Office to the web, and the web to Office. We will deliver new and expanded productivity experiences that build upon the device mesh vision to extend productivity scenarios seamlessly across the PC, the web, and mobile devices. Individuals will seamlessly enjoy the benefits of each - the rich, dynamic editing of the PC, the mobility of the phone, and the work-anywhere ubiquity of the web. Office Live will also extend the PC-based Office into the social mesh, expanding the classic notion of "personal productivity" into the realm of the "inter-personal" through the linking, sharing and tagging of documents. Individuals will have a productivity centric web presence where they can work and productively interact with others. This broadly extended vision of Office is being realized today through Office Mobile and Office Live Workspace on the web, augmented by SharePoint, Exchange, and OCS for the connected enterprise.
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    I don't think Dan Farber gets it. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML establishes MSOffice as a standards compliant web/cloud/WOA "editor" for client/Web-Stack/server systems. No need to try to squeeze all tha tcomplexity into a browser. Just use the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component to convert rich, business process loaded, documents to a web ready format. OH my, XAML is proprietary and IE-8 does not support XHTML2, CSS3, SVG, XForms, RDF, SPARQL, SWF, PDF or JavaScript. Bummer. ISO has done the unthinkable and Microsoft can now break the web without worry of anti trust retribution. They are after all, simply implementing an open standard.
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Future of the Web | Diigo Group - 0 views

  • Watching the grand convergence of the desktop, the server, devices, and the Web. Topics addressed include events and emerging trends in universal interoperability, standards development, SOA, Clouds, Web-Stacks, RIA run-times, etc.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      New group with overlapping subject matter, the Future of the Web.
  • Watching the grand convergence of the desktop, the server, devices, and the Web. Topics addressed include events and emerging trends in universal interoperability, standards development, SOA, Clouds, Web-Stacks, RIA run-times, etc.
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    New Diigo group with overlapping subject matter, more focused on the web.
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Live Mesh: Microsoft hews to open standards rule | John Carroll | ZDNet.com - 0 views

  • Live Mesh is supposed to be a common framework to enable cross-device interoperability. It also includes a bunch of shared services that can be used from any Mesh-compatible device, such as network storage space and photo-sharing services, among others (others likely include many of the “Live” properties) . This makes sense given the direction that the world is moving in, with an ever-growing proliferation of computing devices both on one’s person and within the home that, currently, are too much like islands of processing power. A true mesh platform that standardized cross-device communication and synchronization in the same way HTML / CSS / Javascript has standardized user interfaces on the web would surely be a step forward from an IT evolutionary standpoint. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but I think the use of the term “standard” was the essential part of the previous sentence. Microsoft won’t get anywhere if they tried to peddle a closed-protocol environment to developers in 2008.
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    I saw Live-Mesh today at the Web 2.0 Expo. It's still flashware, but very cool flashware. (Or is that "silverware" :) If they get this right the web will belong to Microsoft. I disagree with John that mesh will be standards base. Yes, mesh will work with HTML/CSS amd MAYBE JavaScript. But it will also work with the prorietary XAML, Silverlight, Smart Tags - LINQ. All of which are proprietary alternatives to what mesh won't support :: the advanced format standards from the W3C - XHTML, CSS3, SVG, XForms, CDF, RDF, RDFa and SPARQL. Live-Mesh will break the open web just s surely as the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component will break the open web future into a Google consumer web, and a Microsoft business web.
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What's up at the OpenDocument Foundation? Linux.com - Wikipedia Link - 0 views

  • Re: Finally, the beef... Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 76.14.48.79] on November 12, 2007 11:32 PM XHTML + CSS is the base. Add XForms, SVG and SMiL where needed. Study the work being done on microformats. Like most modern portable XML file formats, the basic packages are those of content and presentation. In CDF speak, this is XHTML content and CSS as the portable presentation package. ODF and MS-OOXML both struggle with the legacy tradition of the presentation package being application specific. Meaning, the portability is limited to other applications that are either of the same version, or, share the same layout and rendering model so that the exchange of the presentation package is lossless.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      See also "Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper)," http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4 for a thorough rebuttal of claims that the W3C Compound Document Formats and framework are not suitable for use in the office productivity software sector.
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    The Wikipedia "OpenDocument Foundation" page is continually re edited, changing the factual truth to portray the Foundation in the worst light possible. Every time we try to repair the page to reflect the truth, the liars jump right back in. Is there a Wikipedia resolution for liies? Our facts can be verified by the five year history of the OASIS membership and ODF TC records that are public information. This anonymous post to Joe Barr's Linux.com article is perhaps the best explanation on the Web of why the Foundation choose CDF, and could not use ODF.Good explanation of MSOffice-OOXML and the MS Web-Stack :: MS Cloud.No mention of the December 2007 MSOffice SDK beta that provided us with that first all important glimpse of the MSOffice-OOXML <> XAML converter component. I take it the article comment was written before that most important discovery. XAML "fixed/flow" is an alternative to W3C/ISO XHTML-CSS and ISO PDF.
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The end of the web as we know it | Adobe - Developer Center : Duane Nickull - 0 views

  • The web as we knew it in 1995 has already largely died. Out of the ashes has arisen a second incarnation and we are currently on the verge of a new reality, Web 2.0. While there is no one definition, Web 2.0 is perhaps best described as the migration to the web as a platform spanning all connected devices, coupled with a specific set of patterns. Web 2.0 has many components, but it is generally associated with a class of web applications that harness the intelligence, data, and actions of their users to create value (iconic Web 2.0 applications include Flickr, YouTube, and Amazon). While many are looking to Web 2.0 to solve the problems of yesteryear, the mass migration is creating a new set of problems that must be addressed. This article is divided into three parts: an analysis of the web today, an analysis of what has already died or is dying, and a look forward at aspects of Web 2.0 that are creating problems and will likely die in the next five years.
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    Humm. Good idea Duane! I'm thinking why it is that i don't have a Wikipedia resource center for my personal information. Instead i have Diigo, Facebook and Flickr.
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    Excellent whitepaper from Duane.
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Live Mesh: Windows Becomes the Web | Microsoft Watch - Web Services &amp; Browser - - 0 views

  • simply: Microsoft is launching a synchronization platform that the company claims is technology-agnostic. That absolutely is not true. Live Mesh is Microsoft's attempt to turn operating system and proprietary services platforms into hubs that replace the Web. It's the most anti-Web 2.0 technology yet released by any company. Microsoft is building a services-based operating system that transcends and extends Windows and also the function of Web browsers. It's bold, brilliant and downright scary. Microsoft has identified the right problem, synchronization, but applied a self-serving solution.
  • The services platform doesn't seek to keep the Web as the hub, but replace it with something else. The white paper is wonderfully misleading, by implying that Microsoft supports the Web as the hub. Live Mesh is the hub.
  • Live Mesh is competitively important to Microsoft because of companies like Google, whose services shift computational and informational relevancy from desktop software to the Web. But there is something missing as data spreads out across the Web platform to millions of devices: simple synchronization.
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  • This mesh of services compromises the overlaying platform, which is supported by proprietary Microsoft APIs.
  • APIs, desktop software and Mesh run-time take on real importance. Users must install Live Mesh software on their PC, which includes the synchronization run-time and makes extension changes to Windows Explorer.
  • Microsoft's broader Mesh vision extends the operating system to cloud services. Microsoft's PR information refers to the "Mesh Operating Environment," which would presumably grant end users access to applications anytime, anywhere and on anything. Access includes the Web browser, provided it's from Live Desktop. End users would designate devices in their Mesh that would be permitted to run applications. And, yes, it does foreshadow hosted applications as well as those accessed from a Mesh-designated PC.
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    Joe Wilcox takes on MS "Live Mesh" in a series of articles. Clearly he gets it but one has to wonder about the rest of the techno crowd.
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Ozzie signals Microsoft's surrender to the cloud | Software as Services | ZDNet.com - 0 views

  • It’ll be cheaper to put apps in the cloud than to run them on your own servers: “It’s an inevitable business. The higher levels in the app stack require that this infrastructure exists, and the margins are probably going to be higher in the stack than they are down at the bottom … Somebody who is selling [business] apps is going to build in, more than likely, the underlying utility costs within their higher-level service. It will still be cheaper to do those things on a service infrastructure than it is on a server infrastructure.” Taken together, these statements — by the company’s chief strategy officer, no less — add up to a huge strategic shift under way within Microsoft. They suggest that, in five years’ time, the company will be unrecognizable compared to today, with services revenues taking a significant share while licence revenues dwindle.
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    Phil Wainwright comments on Ray Ozzie statements concerning the Microsoft Cloud Strategy. Phil of course thinks MS is in trouble.
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Has Microsoft lost its way on desktop computing? | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com - 0 views

  • OM MALIK: You outlined Microsoft’s software-plus-services strategy, but what I want to know about is the changing role of the desktop in this service’s future. RAY OZZIE: I think the real question is (that) if you were going to design an OS today, what would it look like? The OS that we’re using today is kind of in the model of a ’70s or ’80s vintage workstation. It was designed for a LAN, it’s got this great display, and a mouse, and all this stuff, but it’s not inherently designed for the Internet. The Internet is this resource in the back end that you can design things to take advantage of. You can use it to synchronize stuff, and communicate stuff amongst these devices at the edge. A student today or a web startup, they don’t actually start at the desktop. They start at the web, they start building web solutions, and immediately deploy that to a browser. So from that perspective, what programming models can I give these folks that they can extend that functionality out to the edge? In the cases where they want mobility, where they want a rich dynamic experience as a piece of their solution, how can I make it incremental for them to extend those things, as opposed to learning the desktop world from scratch?
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    ZDNet's David Morgenstern must have missed ISO approval of OOXML! MS has a desktop strategy, but involves proprietary protocols, formats and API's as the protective barrier for transitioning desktop bound client/server business processes to MS Web Stack bound SaaS-SOA business processes. Welcome to the Microsoft Cloud!
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ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack | BetaNews Jan 2007 - 0 views

  • An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML's place in the fabric of the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon for network applications.
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    Look at the date on this! A full year has passed and we now can clearly see the importance to Microsoft of ISO approval for MSOffice-OOXML. The MSOffice SDK provides an easy to implement OOXML <> XAML conversion component, pavign the way for billions of complex, business process rich MSOffice documents to be used by IE-8 and the emerging MS Web-Stack. XAML is proprietary and exclusive to the Microsoft Web.
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Introducing Microsoft Online Services - 0 views

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    The MS Cloud has arrived!!!! Grab your ankles and kiss your ever lovin Open Web good-bye. This is a video describing how Microsoft Online Services can add value to your organization. Interestingly, the software-plus-service offerings from Microsoft are being marketed as a way for corporate IT to break free; reducing systems management cost and operation overhead while leveraging existing "rich client" systems. Meaning, MSOffice is now connected to the MS Cloud. The transition of legacy client/server systems to MS Cloud hosted client/Web-Stack /server systems can now begin. No doubt the recent ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML played no small part in this announcement!
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Open source SOA infrastructure project CXF elevated to full Apache status | Dana Gardne... - 0 views

  • CXF is really designed for high performance, kind of like a request-response style of interaction for one way, asynchronous messaging, and things like that. But it’s really designed for taking data in from a variety of transports and message formats, such as SOAP or just raw XML. If you bring in the Apache Yoko project, we have CORBA objects coming in off the wire. It basically processes them through the system as quickly as possible with very little memory and processing overhead. We can get it to the final destination of where that data is supposed to be, whether it’s off to another service or a user-developed code, whether it’s in JavaScript or JAX-WS/JAXB code. That’s the goal of what the CXF runtime is — just get that data into the form that the service needs, no matter where it came from and what format it came from in, and do that as quickly as possible.
  • the fascinating intersection of SOA and WOA — with on-premises services and cloud-based resources (including data) supporting ecologies of extended enterprises business processes
  • Creating federated relationships between private and public clouds and their services and resources requires more than just industry standards. It requires visibility and access, the type that comes from open source communities and open use licenses.
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    The Apache CFX "Interoperability Framework" for SOA Project is ready. We really could have used CFX in the 2003 Comcast project where a Tomcat/MYSQL Web-Stack connected to many disparate blackboxes. The blackboxes were standalone "Inventory and Billing" transaction processing data centers aquired by Comcast during a five year burst of acquisitions. Of course, none of these blackboxes could talk to any other! Enter SOA with XMLHTTPRequest streams. 2002-2003. We needed CFX to scale!
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The Enterprise- Cloud Duo: SOA plus WOA | Dana Gardner - 0 views

  • Cloud providers and mainstay enterprise software vendors could make sweeter WOA plus SOA music together. They may not have a choice. If Microsoft acquires Yahoo!, there will be a huge push for Microsoft Oriented Architecture that will double-down on “software plus services.” And MSFT combined with Yahoo would have an awful lot in place to work from — from the device and PC client, to the server farm, business applications, developer tools and communities, and ramp-up of global cloud/content/user metadata resources. I think Microsoft already understands the power of WOA plus SOA.
  • The cloud that can manage data in way that allows both user-level and process-level access, with granular permissioning — and allows CXOs to feel good about it all — gets the gold ring. The cloud business is a 50-year business.
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    Review of Dion Hinchcliffe's article, "Web 2.0 driving Web Oriented Architecture and SOA".
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Microsoft adds XAML to 'Open Specification' list - SD Times On The Web - 0 views

  • Microsoft is showing off one more facet of its once-hidden intellectual property. On Tuesday, it placed the preliminary technical specifications for XAML—the Extensible Application Markup Language—under its Open Specification Promise, or OSP.The technical documentation will enable third parties to implement XAML formats in their client, server and tool products. It includes both the 2006 implementation of Microsoft’s XAML object mapping specification and the vocabulary specification for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). A spokesperson said that the final XAML documentation would be published by June 30.XAML is a declarative XML-based language used to define data binding, events and UI elements in WPF and Silverlight applications, and to define workflows in Windows Workflow Foundation.
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    Here we go. The release of XAML documentation is scheduled to coincide with the release of the MSOffice-OOXML SDK.
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Analysis: Sun's Lively Kernel Threatens HTML, CSS Dominance - Software - IT Channel New... - 0 views

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 May 08 - Cached
  • A little-known project called Lively Kernel at Sun's research labs simplifies the way Web programming is created. Lively is a JavaScript engine that uses scalable vector graphics (SVG) to render images, animation and text on a Web browser. What's most exciting about the Lively stack is that eliminates the need for HTML, document object model (DOM) and style sheet (CSS) programming.
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    uh oh. JavaScript - SVG rendering engine relacing HTML - CSS with SVG drawn from a transform library.
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    Don't forget that SVG Tiny allows vendor-specific extensions, with some conditions.
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Extensible Application Markup Language (Xaml) | Microsoft Developer - 0 views

  • The Microsoft Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) technical documentation set provides preliminary technical specifications for this language based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) that enables developers to specify a hierarchy of objects.
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    Download of XAML documents
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Ten things to know about Microsoft's Live Mesh | Mary Jo | ZDNet.com - 0 views

  • Software + Services platform for synchronization and collaboration
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    Microsoft introduces Live-Mesh, and Mary Jo runs through the ten things that caught her attention.
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