windowssynchronizationsyncml

Hardware-neutral library to sync with smartphones?


I'd like to know what the status is to sync data (eg. SQLite, etc.) from Windows with smartphones. Ideally, the same tool should support the main smartphones (iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android).

Google returned information on OpenSync and SyncML, and I'd like to ask experts whether those projects are ready for showtime, and if not, if there are alternatives I should look at.

It seems like it's pretty much still a proprietary world, and the easiest way is to first sync with Outlook, and then sync Outlook with the smartphone using whatever sync utility it provided.

Thank you.


Solution

  • There is no single protocol which is supported by all phones. The two most popular ones are ActiveSync and OMA DM.

    ActiveSync is supported by virtually all modern smartphones (except BlackBerry) and can sync mail, contacts and calendars. It can also (depending on the device support) do some basic device management such as remote lock or wipe.

    OMA DM is a "competing" spec which is prevalent on Symbian phones but also supported on a few others. It is SyncML based and allows syncing pretty much anything on the phone.