Mezeo: Integrating Cloud Storage With Windows

There’s no shortage of cloud storage vendors willing to partner with managed services providers. All the same, a recent demonstration of Mezeo Software’s white label storage solution — specifically their integration with Windows — left me impressed. Here’s why.

The Texas-based Mezeo was formed in 2008 to be the first cloud storage provider with REST APIs, drastically increasing the ease of retrieving stored data, says Mezeo Software CEO Steve Lesem. They don’t host their namesake cloud storage platform themselves, but Mezeo does deal with what they call “Premier Hosting Providers” like NaviSite or SoftLayer who can do it for you if your own hardware isn’t up to the task.

The advantage to that arrangement is that an MSP can shop around for the best deal on a Mezeo deployment, or do business with existing partners. Since Mezeo is entirely rebrandable, it doesn’t much matter whose data center its coming out of, especially when you’re using it as the backend to a service you rolled yourself.

But that’s not Mezeo’s main attraction. Mezeo’s Lane Pierce demonstrated their solution for me. Simply put, their cloud storage client appears to integrate with Windows better than some MP3 players I’ve used (I’m looking at you, Sony).

Your Mezeo storage appears as just another network drive in Windows Explorer, and you can drag and drop files in and out of it. In addition to the now-expected file sharing, Mezeo’s client also supports projects, where everybody can see a certain grouping of files and, depending on their access level, view, edit, and delete them.

The only hitch is that while all files and file changes appear in real time in your filesystem, Mezeo requires users log in to their web panel for advanced controls like setting expiration dates on shared files and setting those access roles. But day-to-day tasks like viewing documents and keeping files in sync across computers are handled through the Windows shell.

I promise I’m not on Mezeo’s payroll: I’ll be giving their service a whirl for myself over the next few days, and if it turns out Pierce was pulling the wool over my eyes with their impressive demo, rest assured MSPmentor’s readership will know it. But I’m intrigued by what I’ve seen so far.

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