Microsoft moves Windows Mobile My Phone online backup service into open beta

Microsoft’s My Phone service for Windows Mobile will be opened to the public tomorrow, albeit as an beta version of the service+ software combo.

Users of Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 smartphones can download the client software as of tomorrow from http://myphone.microsoft.com and sign up for a free account.

My Phone performs a daily backup of your phone’s address book, SMS messages, appointments, tasks, photos, videos, music and even documents with up to 200MB of content.

The data store can be accessed online through your account at the myphone.microsoft.com portal, and also downloaded onto a new device should your mobile phone be lost, stolen or simply replaced by a shiny new smartphone (the software will be baked into the forthcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 devices).

Each backup session takes place at a user-designated time between 11pm and 5am, provided of course that your phone is turned on. Microsoft has chosen this time not just because it’s when the phone is least likely to be in use, but because there are fewer users on the network and thus overall speeds should be higher, enabling a faster backup and minimising network load. You can also initiate a manual sync session at any time.

Note that contacts have to be stored in the phone’s memory rather than on the SIM card in order to be backed up. And while you can include the contents of a memory card in the backup session, My Phone’s 200MB ceiling will be insufficient for all but the smallest memory cards with very little music or video.

Each backup session will of course be counted on your smartphone’s data plan, so make sure you’ve got plenty of overhead to avoid the risk of having a few backups push you into expensive ‘excess usage’ territory.

Microsoft says that My Phone’s backup functions  are just a ‘first step’ for the service. “Over time you'll see us increasingly integrate My Phone with other Windows Live services such as Windows Live photos, contacts, calendar and other types of services” says Todd Brix, Microsoft's Senior Director of Mobile Services. “We'll end up integrating more and more of these.”

Brix also told APC that My Phone would be woven into Windows 7, most likely as one of the options on the Device Stage when a Windows Mobile phone is connected to the PC. “It's part of our strategy to integrate Windows Live services with Windows 7, and My Phone is one of those services”.

Brix says that a future evolutions of the service would extend to personalising the phone using the Web front-end – changing the wallpaper and ring tones, adding applications and setting a variety of options all from a familiar and easy to use Web page rather than fiddling with the phone’s own menus.