Why is Sync Still so Hard with Windows Mobile?

The fundamental idea behind a personal digital assistant (PDA) is to have all your appointments, contacts, tasks, and reminders with you while you’re not sitting in front of your computer in the office. I’ve been using Microsoft’s mobile platform since the iPAQ 3600 series way back in 2000 (I think?). There’s been one thing that hasn’t changed over all these years and revisions of the flagship mobile operating system from Microsoft – Sync. Despite numerous revisions to Active Sync (more commonly known as ActiveStink among the community) or Windows Mobile Device Center, as it’s now called on Vista, and Windows Mobile, there are still lots of people having lots of problems.

Duplicates is the biggest issue that I have been facing since the very start. I don’t know how or why, but with every sync Outlook adds another copy of a reminder or appointment. The included image shows all the reminders in my calendar and I’ve highlighted the current crop of duplicates (click the image to see a larger version). These are just the ones that fit into the screen shot. Unfortunately, there are plenty more. Ultimately, I have to spend about 30 minutes every month or two, just to browse my calendar and remove these duplicates. Frustrating? Absolutely! What’s worse, is that I have personally brought this to the attention of people within Microsoft on a number of occasions and yet nothing has been done about it. Or if something was done, it didn’t fix the problem. We’ve been through a number of copies of Outlook, ActiveSync, and Windows Mobile. You would think that over all these years, and updates that they could have hammered out where the problem is coming from and done something to correct this.

As the mobile industry welcomes Apple and Google into it’s arena, Microsoft has to get their act together and create a solid sync experience. I won’t even get into the fact that the iPhone found all my email accounts in Outlook and ported them over the the phone without a single hiccup (Another thing Microsoft should have done years ago!). iTunes, Apples’s poorly named sync tool, actually works very well when it comes to transferring contacts, reminders, and what-have-you to the device. And while I haven’t actually had hands-on time with the new G1 Android device from Google, I haven’t read about any real problems getting personal information onto the device. In fact, from what I understand, it sync’s from the cloud pretty easily and hassle free.

Microsoft needs to show that they mean business in this space and with today’s Sync solution, they are a long way off. There needs to be a fool-proof, easy to use Sync tool or customers will start looking elsewhere for the Smartphones and PDA’s. Not everyone is running or wants to run Exchange just so they can sync details with their phones. I challenge the entire Windows Mobile, ActiveSync, and Outlook teams at Microsoft to turn off Exchange Direct Push and only use desktop ActiveSync for the next 6 months. Maybe then you will understand the frustrations and problems of your customers.