Syncing Addresses, Calendar, & Tasks with Windows?

DJDaveET asks: "I'm a Windows XP user who has embraced OS X as an additional tool in my arsenal. It's a wonderful OS and the machine is a joy to use. My one major problem is thus -- currently, I'm a heavy Outlook user on my two Windows boxes. I use Outlook to manage my email, my contacts, my tasks, my calendar, etc. I currently use the fusionOne service to keep those two computers and my Samsung I300 phone all in sync with one another. I need to have that same information on my PowerBook. I don't really care what applications they go into, as long as they're all available. Integrated would be wonderful. I'm not in a position to be able to completely abandon my Windows boxes, so I'd like the Mac to play well with the others. How can I keep the data all in sync? What apps should I use on the Mac for the appropriate parts -- email, tasks, calendar, contacts, etc?"

Comments

Palm?

[medcalf]

You could get a Palm, and sync it to one of the Windows boxes. Then sync one way to the Mac (from the Palm to the Mac) and you are done.

Isn't this what iSync is supposed to do?

[Genesishep]

I am not positive but I believe Apple is working on a solution for your problem right now. Sometime this month iSync should be released. It's entire purpose is to sync handhelds, phones, addressbooks, iCal etc with the same information.

You can get information about it here.

The Other Way 'Round

[feldsteins]

I would put that the other way 'round, myself. After all it's Microsoft that isn't giving you a platform-independent solution in this instance, not Apple.

Like I always say there are millions of people who use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook to do their Microsoft Exchange email and who type things in Microsoft Word and calculate things with Microsoft Excel, etc, etc, etc...and who see no problem with this. I myself do.

OK, sorry about the rant. Email shouldn't be a problem, anything that does POP3 or IMAP4 (damned near anything) should be fine. I recommend Mail or Entourage or even Eudora or Netscape Messenger. Calendaring is a bit harder. It's not too tough to do a one-way, read-only deal for your Mac (just sync your palm on the PC and then sync it palm-overwrites-Mac on the Mac), but having true interactive exchange calendaring on the Macintosh is another thing.

There used to be a Mac Outlook client but it's a dead product now I think. It certainly wouldn't run in OS X, anyway. The Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit is making hints that they are about to remedy this situation but there has been no official word thusfar. I'm betting that in six months they give us a full-featured or nearly full-featured outlook client

Re:The Other Way 'Round

[Spencerian]

To add and correct:

Microsoft Outlook 2001 for Macintosh is alive and well (released for only 1 year now). It's fully integrated with Exchange calendar (so long as you don't live in a place that does not do Daylight Savings Time--see MacWindows.com on a bug with Outlook and OS X). No, Outlook is not an OS X-native application.

I've been studying this idea, as well. I'm leaning less to Microsoft solutions and more to Apple or open source items as they have standards that, while not perfect, can be modified to do the job. I think the solution lies in part with Microsoft Entourage or Mail (which can use Exchange servers that have IMAP support activated), iCal, Address Book (which handles vCal cards), and iSync.

Re:I have the same problem

[Lars T.]

Top Story: Further Microsoft clarification on Exchange client for Mac.

Here is the official word:

Microsoft is in the early stages of developing an Exchange-based solution.

Re:What about iCal for the PC???

[extra88]

We'll have to see what iSync brings to the mix but currently iCal can "Publish & Subscribe" to calendars using .Mac or any WebDAV server for the publishing part. Outlook for Windows (2000 and newer I think) also has a calendar publishing feature which I believe uses a compatible format. However this will not lead to synchronizing because I think the published calendars will be treated as someone else's calendar, even if you were the one publishing from the other machine.

I believe the file format used when publishing is open so writing a client to publish and subscribe to them should be doable. I would expect to see this added to Evolution if there's demand for it.

Palm as lowest common denominator

[Niherlas]

(Ignoring the religion and focusing on solutions...)

You have two seperate problems

Email is one. For that, you want to get your arse on an IMAP server. This will allow your mail to "live" on the server (with only a local cache on the various boxes choose to log into). Heck, moving your email to IMAP will even allow you to install SquirrelMail on an apache/php system someplace, configure it to connect to your IMAP server, and then you even have web-based email.

Contacts/ToDo/Calendar is another problem.

iCal is, frighteningly enough, among the first major-publisher apps to use "standards based" file formats (in iCal's case, it's the iCalendar format). Outlook XP and Entourage v.X use MS-proprietary file formats. There is no way to easily transfer data *directly* between the apps. They may both bear the MS name, but the development teams are adequately siloed that they may as well be entirely different products.

As as previous poster mentioned, your best bet to go between Outlook XP and Entourage is going to be a Palm-based PDA (Palm, Handspring, Clie) with an Outlook conduit on the PC side. That will take care of your to-do, contacts, and calendar between those two apps.

Later, when iSync comes along, that same Palm will be able to sync your XP data with the Jaguar-internal apps: AddressBook and iCal.

That is, I'm afraid, the best option available for you. Chances are great that you can find an old Visor dirt-cheap on eBay (a used Handspring Visor will be your cheapest USB-based Palm solution.) Your serial number will get you the Handpring PC download with the Outlook conduit.

Best of luck!