Synchronizing calendars is a tough problem -- tougher than mere interoperability, tougher than simply publish-and-subscribe. Those who undertake to do it successfully probably deserve the highest number of SwampDrain points that this mere blog could possibly bestow.
Thus it is with a heavy heart that I must report the shuttering last month of FuseCal. During my busy summer, it escaped my notice. Obviously each calendar service must make its numbers to survive, and when one doesn't, it reflects upon the sorry state of the continuing lack of interoperability between calendars, the continuing complexity of calendar interoperability, and the lack of a clarion call from consumers for easy calendar interactions -- whether in the cloud, on desktops, or in our pockets.
The passage of FuseCal also takes with it into limbo the assets of iFreeBusy, which set out to solve a simpler problem: that of providing an easy place to post one's free and busy information.
Now it falls back upon CalConnect to continue to hammer out calendar interoperability standards which can become the basis for more progress and innovation in this area.
Thanks FuseCal for buying a competitor, then just leaving your customers high and dry without any way to access the information. They should have open sourced it or something instead of leaving customers high and dry.
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