LiveSide.net has noticed that the new and improved SkyDrive will no longer support the main Live Mesh feature.
Mike Torres from SkyDrive clarified in the comments on the Windows 8 blog post that you won’t be able to set up device to device sync, only “device to SkyDriveâ€. He said::
We won’t be offering a way to sync between PCs without using the cloud as we’ve found that it adds complexity. Both technical complexity as well as, more importantly, complexity in the overall user model. The SkyDrive model is really quite simple in that it’s “cloud-first†and not “cloud-optional†which means you no longer have to worry about the timing of various PCs being online to sync, or having files that are only available on PCs but not through SkyDrive.com or mobile devices. Conflicts are far less likely as well since the cloud is always "online". The fetch feature addresses the need to “get back†to stuff that you haven’t put in SkyDrive yet. There are tradeoffs either way, we realize that, but we decided to focus on a simple model and really work to get that right.
P2P synching has advantages, such as not being bound by the size of the available online storage, and having your files remain available off-line.
On the other hand Live Mesh has always been a bit buggy, and having your files available in the cloud from anywhere and any device has increasingly become more important than having it available on a specific set of computers.
It is expected that eventually Live Mesh will be de-emphasized, leaving users with only SkyDrive.
Will our readers be missing Live Mesh features, especially with massive online storage in SkyDrive now available and Windows 8 making SkyDrive just another drive for your PC? Let us know below.