Local calendars are dead, he says

Paul Thurott: "The email application is dead. So, too, is the local calendar application."

Someone needs to notify the mobile phone companies, who will ship maybe a billion "local calendar applications" this year.

But I know what Paul's talking about. It looks like the writing is on the wall for calendar applications that don't live in the browser. But we don't know exactly what the date of death will be -- yet.

Any hosted Exchange customers out there?

Today I read a post from Matt Hartley about DSLExtreme's hosted Exchange service, and wondered if anyone was using it to sync their calendars. I'm particularly interested to know if anyone has done this to sync two or more non-Outlook calendars without requiring an Outlook client. Feel free to email me or post a comment here, if you have a story to tell.

Stewart Alsop's solution doesn't work for most

Stewart Alsop (full disclosure: former boss of mine) is sick of the sorry state of calendar and contact sync. Unfortunately, his solution -- designed around Microsoft Exchange -- isn't practical for the average calendar user. Outpost.com lists Exchange Server at $1,299.99, which doesn't include the PC with Windows Server 2003 you need to run it.

iPhone calendar sync woes

Paul Thurott: "It's clear that, on Windows at least (Apple's biggest market), iPhone sync is horribly broken. Regardless of the supported Windows or Office version you use, the iPhone will only sync with the single default local calendar in Outlook, and not with any other calendars, be they local or Internet-based. This is a problem for a number of reasons, but the most damning is that calendar sync with multiple calendars (local, Internet, whatever) actually works fine with a normal iPod." I don't own an iPhone (River does) but the fact that I don't have a Mac (and she does) was a factor in my decision. As for what Paul considers superior performance on the iPod, remember that you can't update the calendar on an iPod. I'm not surprised that Apple's one-way sync works better or is more capable. Two-way sync is hard (though necessary).

Another Outlook/Google Calendar horror story

I'm sure Microsoft Outlook works fine for lots of folks, but stories like this keep me looking for alternatives.

Vista Calendar/Windows Mobile: Microsoft's Web site is no help

Did Microsoft drop the ball on providing sync between Vista Calendar and Windows Mobile 6?

From the current Windows Mobile Device Center page:

"Microsoft® Outlook® XP, Microsoft® Outlook® 2003, and Microsoft® Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration clients are required for synchronization of e-mail, contacts, tasks and notes to a Personal Computer."

The Vista Calendar page still makes no mention of syncing with any version of Windows Mobile.

Since Outlook still doesn't sync with Vista Calendar, does this leave those who own both Windows Mobile devices and Vista Calendar up a creek without a paddle?

Windows Mobile 6: How does it stack up?

In my never-ending quest to sync my Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC calendar to anything other than Outlook, I came across LapLink Software's PDASync, which works with a variety of PC-based calendars, including Notes, Groupwise, Lotus Organizer, and ACT! 2000. For me, none of those are viable alternatives to Outlook. But what about Vista Calendar, I wondered? Would PDASync support Vista Calendar? I dropped a note to LapLink Software and received this reply from Aarti Vaid:

"Unfortunately, Laplink is not currently looking to build a version of PDAsync that works between Windows Mobile 5.x and Vista's Calendar. However, I will forward this enquiry to the developers for consideration. Thank you for writing in. If there's anything else I can help with, please let me know."

I notice some Windows Mobile 6 devices are already shipping. Does anyone reading this have one? Which calendars does it work with on the PC side?