Will it really happen?

Microsoft Corp., under pressure to craft a strategy for competing online that doesn’t involve Yahoo Inc., informally approached social-networking Web site Facebook Inc. to gauge its interest in selling itself to Microsoft, says a person familiar with the situation.

Via Free Preview – WSJ.com

I’m dizzy – exciting and important news come in too fast. The major internet and tech companies fight for the next big thing on the Internet: Platform-as-a-Service, in short PaaS. In other terms: who will provide the standard for an “Internet Operating System” (for consumer applications; business applications are a different battleground)?

• Microsoft Live Mesh
  
• Google AppEngine
  
• Amazon AWS
  
• Yahoo
• Facebook
• MySpace Apps
  

I don’t know and I don’t want to guess … you?

Microsoft unveils the strategy behind FeedSync and the Sync Framework:

The new Live Mesh service that just launched as an invite only “technology preview” is Microsoft’s attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users. On the surface, Mesh is a lot like competing file sync services such as Dropbox, SugarSync (which we covered in January), and even Microsoft’s own FolderShare product. But what sets Live Mesh apart is its platform approach.

Read on: Live Mesh: First Look at Microsoft’s New Platform – ReadWriteWeb

Will Live Mesh become the Windows of the webtop (web desktop)?

Is this strategy or silliness:

Flash Lite for mobile phones might not be good enough for Steve Jobs, but Microsoft is less picky. It is licensing Flash Lite for Windows Mobile. This is an acknowledgment of two things: there are a lot of developers and existing Websites out there that work with Flash, and the mobile version of Microsoft’s own competing Silverlight software is nowhere near ready to be deployed.

Read on TechCrunch. The author also asks “Who Will Be the First to Bring A True Flash-Like Experience To Mobile Devices?” and the readers respond:

Hm, does anybody understand these results? The people believe in Microsoft, but Microsoft does not believe in Microsoft?

Don’t think about it too long, otherwise you may get crazy. Just have a good time!

Quite impressive: Silverlight 2.0 offers a built-in control to build Deep Zoom applications. “Deep Zoom” means you can combine multiple pictures so that you have one gigantic picture with a theoretical infinite zoom level. You can watch the Deep Zoom technology in action on the Hard Rock Memoriabilia website or you watch the session from the MIX08 conference.

Have a good time!

The sessions from the MIX08 conference are now available online: as video stream or as downloadable Windows Media file. Btw: you need Silverlight to view the website – or what did you expect? ;)

I didn’t have the time yet to watch them all, but we’ll report here, which sessions are worth watching. If you are interested e.g. in the Microsoft Sync Framework and the FeedSync protocol (interesting for synchronization, replication and offline-ability of online applications), watch this session:

Sorry, no embedded video :(

Nevertheless, have a good time watching it!

If you could not attend the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas (like us), ReadWriteWeb provides a short summary of its highlights:

This week was Microsoft’s MIX08 conference in Las Vegas. The event was filled with announcements, demos, and the debuts of new products, like IE8. Some of the news was expected, but there were other things that came as a surprise (like IE8!). If you weren’t able to attend this year’s conference, here’s a guide to everything you missed.

Read the full story on The Best Stuff from MIX08 – ReadWriteWeb.

Good news from the MIX08 conference: Microsoft released Betas of Silverlight 2 and Internet Explorer 8. Even better: Internet Explorer 8 offers a Facebook integration.

Via MIX08 keynote rundown | The Universal Desktop | ZDNet.com

Good news (at least for us):

Nokia today announced that it has reached a deal with Microsoft to put Silverlight, Redmond’s so-called “Flash killer,” on its S60 Symbian OS-powered smartphones, as well as Series 40 devices and its range of Linux-based Internet tablets.

Read the full article at Nokia to support Microsoft’s “Flash-killer” Silverlight – ReadWriteWeb