OneBigWeb

Published on : December 21st, 2005  

In an earlier post, I wrote about the need for a online structured content store which would allow access to structured personal content from anywhere, anytime, from any device and by anyone with the appropriate access rights.The obvious strategy for any major player (G.Y.M) to create a such a service would be to consolidate all the user content that is part of various services like mail, pictures, links, blogs, contacts, web page, search history, music etc. and offer direct access to this content through webservices.

But Microsoft appears to have a interesting parallel strategy centred around WinFS. WinFS is a structured content store integrates all the data that exists on a typical desktop like mail, docs, contacts into one common database. All applications can directly access all the data without having to go through the application that originally created it.

A key feature of WinFS is syncing which allows users to sync content that exists on multiple computers. Syncing occurs not just at the level of files, but also at a much more granular level allowing for synchronising contacts, appointments etc. In effect, Microsoft can offer one of the key value propositions of the online content store while circumventing the trust issue which killed Hailstorm.

Once the syncing capability is in place, the next natural step would indeed be to offer a truly online content store that resides in the cloud as part of WindowsLive. This is afterall the only means to offer anytime/anywhere/ anyhow/anyone access to content. The obvious benefits along with the incremental nature of this step will make it more easier for users to sign on.

It is this capability for simultaneosly providing solutions at multiple points of the spectrum that gives Microsoft a significant edge over its competitors. What we are seeing here is the realization of the strategy of achieving symmetry between web and non-web based computing (server-equals-service!) that Gates articulated in the cnet interview.

Notes.
- The WinFS blog has a post on syncing. Notice the mention of peer-peer topologies towards the end of the post. Something that we hear about more often from Microsoft these days! Groove, Foldershare….
- AllPeers has a product which has some similarities with the WinFS approach. A related blog post by its CTO, Matthew Gertner, here.
- Gates cnet interview. For all the hype surrounding Google, it is far too premature to write off Microsoft. Perhaps, this cat does indeed have nine lives!