Microsoft Live Mesh won't work

Microsoft's Ray Ozzie is very excited about LiveMesh ...

Ray Ozzie Wants to Push Microsoft Back Into Startup Mode

... Then comes a demonstration of Live Mesh, which will allow people to seamlessly synchronize all their information with as many people and places as they want, across as many devices (computer, phone, camera) as they want...

Ozzie needs to spend some time hanging out with "Health Level 7" (HL-7) veterans.

Live Mesh won't work unless everyone agrees to fully embrace a complete specification of Microsoft's data model for all the entities of interest.

This is the basis for the HL-7 RIM CDA specifications and the massive formal ontologies they use (ex. SNOMED CT). That's not to say that the CDA/Terminfo/SNOMED documents will work in the real world, but at least they don't pretend to magically reconcile disparate data models and they come with a hugely expensive domain-specific expert-maintained ontology.

Microsoft is nuts to attack this problem. That's not to say I know what to do with Microsoft, but they'd be better off returning the Live Mesh money to shareholders.