Free Google email synchs with mobile phones
Technology ( 8 )
SAN FRANCISCO —
Google on Monday began synchronizing its free web-based email service with smart phones using software licensed from arch-rival Microsoft. Google Sync perpetually updates Gmail messages, calendars, and contact lists in iPhones or Windows-based mobile devices to match changes users make using computers online, or vice versa.
The feature is similar to the way Canadian firm Research In Motion “pushes” Microsoft Exchange email from servers to its popular BlackBerry smart phones. A version of Sync is available for BlackBerry devices.
“Sync uses push technology so any changes or additions to your calendar or contacts are reflected on your device in minutes,” Google Mobile engineer Bryan Mawhinney wrote in a posting on the California firm’s website.
“Since Sync is a two-way service, you can make changes on your phone or in your Google account. Your calendar and contacts are always up-to-date, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.”
Once Sync is set up on a smart phone, it automatically goes to work in the background using the wireless Internet connection. If a phone is lost or broken, its contact, calendar and email data remain stored by Google.
Mawhinney reminds aspiring Sync users that the service is in a test, or beta, stage and that they will be wise to back up data on their mobile phones before trying it.
Google Sync is made possible by Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync technology licensed from Microsoft, according to Horacio Gutierrez, vice president of intellectual property and licensing at the Washington State software giant.
Microsoft has licensed the technology to other mobile device makers including Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
Gutierrez described the licensing deal with Google as “a clear acknowledgement of the innovation taking place at Microsoft” and an example of the company’s willingness to share intellectual property on reasonable terms.
Wire reports
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8 Comments
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0
cnc
using a free software called CalSyncS60 one can already sync their google calendar on a Nokia, and we have been doing it for more than a year now
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cnc
and the changes work both ways and the effects are instantaneous.
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gogogo
What about iphones?
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soldave
It will probably come later for the iPhone when you buy the application.
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DXXJP
It should already work on your Iphone. Just set up your mail account in settings and then you can set the sync settings. I have been using regular gmail on my Iphone since I got it two years ago. If you delete on your phone it deletes in your account. But this is just mail. The new program allows you to use the complete Gmail on your smart phone.
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sk4ek
Our little start-up was doing this before there was a G-Mail, for corporate groupware (Exchange, Lotus, etc.) and mail on all three Japanese phone networks, regardless of the phone type or network protocol. Too bad the carriers didn't understand what they could have done with it.
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Ranger_Miffy
ske4k...sounds like you had a rough ride with a great precog idea. Now what?
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Betzee
The landscape of Silicon Valley is littered with start-ups. They may have good ideas but what they lack is savvy marketing people. The deal they typically offer is a modest salary and stock options. If someone buys the product the stock will make you rich once the company goes public. But most don’t and everyone knows that and therefore good marketing people are difficult to sign on for those terms.
Google, by contrast, can hire anybody they want. Working there has a cache that say, eBay down the road, doesn’t. That gives them an enormous advantage in the marketplace. I lived in Mountain View, where Google is headquartered. It was clear they ran the town. When some firm nobody had heard of offered the community free WiFi, which was going to be paid for through pop-up advertisements for local businesses, Google countered they would provide it to residents without the annoyance of pop-up advertisements.
City Hall went with Google but then they were very slow in actually making good on their offer. It was clear the community was going to be a guinea pig for some new product. Most residents just wanted to get online. Finally, with a great deal of PR about giving back to the community it was launched in the summer of 2006. I was gone by then, however, and never got a chance to use it….
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