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Go grab a copy of this - http://funambol.com/solutions/devicemanagement.php Setup the DM server and make it do your bidding! :o)

Hi.

Also in a small office we use free version of Funambol with Symbian (e72, e71,...) phones.

We've been mostly happy with it.

Well the summary is kind of badly worded to make it seem like Funambol only has one app. So instead of snarking at him for what seems like an honest (but mistaken) comment, here's a link to Funambol's Android client: http://www.funambol.com/solutions/android.php

The whole thing make very little sense really. Funambol has had an iPhone app since 2008, so I am unsure why Ubuntu is writing their own. Maybe to get some press? Maybe for some unknown technical reason? Hard to say. The Ars link makes it sound like they did it for marketing/branding reasons. Still a very cool platform though.

Part of the big deal about a Google phone is that is syncs with Google (you can always turn that off and use your own or a hosted Funambol server to sync using their client apps). Whatever your using for calendar/contacts (Outlook?) -- just sync that to Google (online services). OTOH it is pretty silly that the Behold doesn't have bluetooth.

"a great example of Microsoft's openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property"

I translate this as: "we bought this thing ages ago, we used it to drive somebody we didn't like out of business, it no longer provides us with any competitor advantage, and the code base is a mess anyway."

Isn't industry moving to SyncML? This guy was watching ActivSync creep up 3 years ago.

Phillip.

> I'm not familiar whith those replacements that work with PDAs. Can you pls name them for me?

Not to be a jerk, but you haven't looked very hard.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/410688/bionicmessage-GroupWare-sync-server-install-gude

There are several (OpenGroupware, SOGo, Citadel, and others) groupware servers that support GroupDAV. Funambol will sync with everything but the kitchen sink [pun intended].

http://www.funambol.com/opensource/

There is a GroupDAV plugin for Thunderbird @ http://www.inverse.ca/english/contributions/thunderbird_groupdav_plugin.html

And several of the Open Source groupware servers, including OpenGroupware, are feature competitive with proprietary solutions like Microsoft Exchange.

How's that integration compare to Funambol with SugarCRM connector and Outlook plugin?

How's that integration compare to Funambol with SugarCRM connector and Outlook plugin?

This isn't pitched as a heavy-duty corporate solution, but SyncML is supported my most phones today. It is an open protocol that lets you sync addressbook information, notes, bookmarks, etc. with a server (and open source servers like funambol already exist). There are also sites like Mobical which offer free SyncML hosting.

Basically, here's how it works: You set your phone up to sync automatically with the SyncML server every couple days. Then whenever you add, say, a contact, it gets uploaded to the server. If you lose your phone or just upgrade, you point your new phone at the server and sync to recover your contacts. The protocol only sends updates, so it is relatively quick and bandwidth friendly. The sync is bidirectional, so you can also add contacts to your phone from your web browser (if your syncml server has a web interface).

Backing up using SIM cards is pretty inconvenient by comparison. You have to manually swap out the SIM whenever you backup, and the SIM protocol is very basic (it can only hold one number per name I believe).

You mean like the open source Funambol (formerly called sync4j)? http://www.funambol.com/

I've actually looked into this. (Tried to get my SE-mobile to sync in Vista and Ubuntu)
There's a rather good backend, along with sync-conduits for quite a few applications, in the Funambol project.
I've also seen a free service that's built on Funambol and lets you sync you mobile over the air and also syncs against your google-calendar, etc, but I cant find it right now. (Got the link in a powered-off computer in the other end of the country)

I agree that it's strange that I have not heard of an open standard for push email.

It seems that Push-IMAP and parts of SyncML are both attempts at an open solution. Funambol appears to be a widely used open-source mobile application server that supports Push email through SyncML. It has support for most types of mobile clients.

So, although I have no experience with any of them, it seems there is some work being done in this field.

There is a difference between drivers for graphics cards and 'drivers' for synchronisation software. In the synchronisation world there is a standard, SyncML/OMA Data Synchronisation, which has been adopted by M$ and most of the major phone/PDA companies, but hasn't found its way into Evolution or other OS desktop systems yet to my knowledge, even though there is a server for it. This topic is talking about closed source hardware drivers though, and cable linked PDAs usually use some kind of serial port, so there's plenty of support for that.

Push email has already taken off - where's the open source version mobile operators can take up (Though I presume this needs to be developed outside the US to avoid software patent litigation)?

I just got a blackberry and the amount of open source software available for it is surprisingly low. We have to get coding. :)

I looked at Sprint vs. Verizon for 3G and chose Sprint becauses Verizon places limits on how you use the bandwidth (e.g., no video). Sprint doesn't, so for me that was a no-brainer.

Synchronization for a Mac may not be straightforward, because we're dealing with proprietary Windows Mobile here. I need to synch to Linux so I'm in the same boat. Funambol looks very promising for synching to the open standard SyncML, but I haven't had time to play with it yet.

I have successfully used DUN over USB on my laptop (running Windows). I haven't yet tried it with Linux, but that's on my list of things to try. Sprint employs lossy compression on the EVDO connection using Bytemobile's software. It's most noticable on images, and is annoying. It's possible to disable it on a Windows laptop by installing Bytemobile's client. There may not be an equivalent Mac (or Linux) solution, but it also may not bother you that much.

One word ghost, at least for desktops. My laptop gets ghosted once it's fully installed and I roll back to that every few months possibly reinstalling a few apps and reghosting the laptop. I dont keep the sole coppies of much anything on there email is synced via imap, calendars via webdav (moving this stuff to http://www.funambol.com/opensource/ assuming it works as well as it talks) documents are in a offline folder that gets synced up to a fileserver whenever I'm using the laptop at home and all the bookmarks etc are networked. My address book synces with my Blackberry and will move over to the previous project when thats complete. So that gets all the data on the servers and the theyare all backed up via bacula and an old DLT7000 that have several TB's worth of tapes for. Full backups are on my schedual (it's a week of changing tapes need to get a robot)and months of diffs fit on a single tape. I can also backup via bacula to DVD's it's significatly faster than the DLT but requires more human intervention and I just trust tapes more.

Though Exchange SP2 does support "push" email with MS Mobile Services v5 WARNING: Microsoft publicity page , here is an Open Source solution I have just came across. funambol open source messaging platform which could help us keep the costs down when implementing mobile email solutions.

You can also do wireless hotsyncing by using Sync4j