What are Work Folders in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2?

As software developer, having quick and almost-ubiquitous access to work documents is imperative to effectively handling the job at hand. Project documentation, proposals and ideas from last week's meetings should be available on any (Windows) computer and device I happen to have, even if I can't connect to the Internet.

Now, there are many solutions to this problem, but each of them has its drawbacks. For simple work, SkyDrive has been my choice since Live Mesh got cancelled, but still, I find SkyDrive to struggle with Office documents like Work and PowerPoint files because of the way these files get locked while you edit them. This sometimes seems to overwhelm SkyDrive.

Now that aside, Windows 8.1 comes with a new neat feature called Work Folders. Work folders complement existing Windows operating system synchronization technologies such as Offline Folders, which has been available for ages. Now, Work Folders better support the scenario of Bring-Your-Own-Devices (BYOD) which seems to be pretty common in the software development circles.

In case you can update your server(s) to Windows Server 2012 R2 and use Windows 8.1 or RT 8.1 as your client OS, then be sure to check the feature out. This Technet article has a nice section titled "Work Folders compared to other sync technologies" which I recommend reading.