Microsoft’s My Phone

At last months Mobile World Congress, Microsoft’s entry into the cloud computing/synchronization phone service was unveiled, called simply My Phone. It is designed to content with Android’s Google connectivity and Apple’s Mobile Me service, but it slid by mostly unnoticed in comparison to other news at the MWC.

The My Phone platform boasts a wide range of features, most notably synchronization of contacts, calendars, appointments, photos, etc… Unfortunately, it is currently only available for Windows Mobile 6 devices, providing a fairly closed platform. Also unfortunate is the rather meager space the service provides, only 200 megabytes as things stand. This number is frankly pathetic when compared to space Google provides; my e-mail account with google holds over 7 gigabytes alone, and that’s without paying for additional space.

“Recommended settings will synchronize contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, photos, videos, text messages, music, and documents between your phone and your My Phone web account…”

“Your Microsoft My Phone account gives you 200 MB of free storage on the Microsoft My Phone web site. If a synchronization would result in exceeding this limit, you will receive an error message on your phone and your account on the My Phone web site will only include information received prior to reaching this limit. Any files in excess of this limit will not be saved…”

The features look pretty nice, and I hope they are expanded upon. Many business users may like the dual synchronization features with Microsoft Exchange Servers as well. But if Microsoft wants to contend with the big boys, they need to open the platform up to more than just their own devices. A cross platform synchronization service could make a lot of people switch over, but it may prove extremely difficult to implement.

The service is still in closed beta, but you can sign up at the site here.