A few days ago we just told you about a potential official SkyDrive app might be coming for Windows Phone, and today we’ve received tips pointing to possible SkyDrive client apps being developed for other platforms too. LiveSide reader Nikhil Jain left us a tip in the comments saying that a SkyDrive clients for Windows, iOS, Mac, and Android are also in development, in addition to the Windows Phone app. While Nikhil didn’t mention any sources, after doing a bit of digging we found an interesting Microsoft job posting for the Windows Live Devices & Roaming Experience (DRX) team which seems to confirm Nikhil’s claims. Here’s an excerpt from the job posting:
The Windows Live DRX team produces the SkyDrive client applications that fuel our customers thirst for stable, secure and available online storage. DRX is building experiences to deliver all of your content from the cloud and your devices to any of your devices anywhere anytime. Our team develops clients for Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone, Mac and Android. We are looking for developers that are looking for their next challenge to build the highly distributed platform and multi-platform clients for the SkyDrive suite of products delivered through Windows Live and Windows.
For those of you who doesn’t know what the Windows Live DRX team do, they’re best known (or so they say) for developing Windows Live Mesh for the Wave 4 release back in 2010. If the DRX team is now working on SkyDrive client applications (for both Windows and other platforms), does that mean these “SkyDrive client applications” are actually some form of Windows Live Mesh? If you recall, the cloud-based “synced storage” component for the current Windows Live Mesh has one major shortfall – it is not integrated with the actual Windows Live SkyDrive in any way. Would this news also mean the synced storage for Mesh will finally be integrated with the actual SkyDrive?
If we trace back to the history of Windows Live Mesh, you might remember that the origin of Windows Live Mesh – which happens to be called Live Mesh – had a vision of being able to run across a variety of platforms and devices, including mobile, Mac, Xbox and Zune. The following video (thanks Avatar X!) from the Microsoft keynote during the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo might give you a good reminder of what Live Mesh could’ve been like:
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Could this news be a possible indication that Microsoft is trying to turn the vision in the video into reality? Stay tuned at LiveSide as we bring you the latest news on SkyDrive and Mesh!