Microsoft's Phone Data Manager - not quite cloud computing

If you’re one of those unhappy Windows Mobile users that have torn your hair out repeatedly over sync issues with ActiveSync on XP and/or Windows Mobile Device Center in Vista, you’ll be pleased to learn there's now another option in the form of the newly-released Microsoft Phone Data Manager Beta.

The good news is that it goes beyond Windows Mobile phones to include devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung. The bad news is that the only thing it actually synchronises are the phone's contacts, and these are synched with Windows Live rather than Outlook or any other online service.

Phone Data Manager also offers a backup feature for music, pictures and video, but it’s pretty underwhelming. All it does is transfer all the digital content from your phone to your PC, never mind that most of it probably originated from your PC in the first place. Unlike ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center, there’s no actual synchronisation involved, and to us it seems like an afterthought as a way to sex up the application's appeal rather than a full-fledged feature in its own right.

For keeping a backup of your contacts in the 'cloud' - especially for phones that don't otherwise offer any other means of backup – Phone Data Manager is a decent app, but it hardly warrants the 'Worry-Free Mobile Life' tagline that's used on the product page. For starters, the PC is still the middleman, so you need to remember to sync your phone on a regular basis - unlike services like MobileMe and Ovi (from Apple and Nokia respectively) that sync contacts (not to mention appointments and other data) directly from the phone.

Microsoft has had all the pieces necessary to build a solid competitor to Apple’s MobileMe and Nokia’s Ovi for awhile now, namely Exchange ActiveSync, FolderShare, Windows Live and LiveMesh, but for now it seems that Microsoft’s content to keep pushing the antiquated mobile-PC sync model.