Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Feb. 11, 2009

Google has launched its new Google Sync for iPhones and Windows Mobile devices. However, please note that this is only possible because of a patent license from Microsoft covering the implementation of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol on Google's mail servers, according to Microsoft.

To date, Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and a few more are among licensees in the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Licensing Program.

Horacio Gutierrez, v.p. of Intellectual Property & Licensing at Microsoft said “this agreement is 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."

"This open approach has been part of Microsoft’s IP licensing policy since 2003 and has resulted in over 500 licensing agreements of the last five years. Google’s licensing of these Microsoft patents is a clear acknowledgment of the innovation taking place at Microsoft,” added Gutierrez.

For cell phones that support Sync-ML, Google's new tool for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices will allow users to get Gmail contacts on their mobile phones. The synchronization happens automatically over the air.

Google Sync for iPhone and Windows Mobile is being launched in beta.

Google’s support for the iPhone and Windows Mobile comes on top of a tool it released in Oct. 2008 for BlackBerry smartphones to sync Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with pre-installed calendar and contacts apps.

On. Feb. 5, Microsoft did confide that its My Phone feature syncs contact and other data to a password-protected Web site where users can back up and restore their phone data.

Microsoft's application works on phones that work on the Windows Mobile 6+ operating system.

It will be interesting to see if Google will also license Microsoft's Exchange Server technology to work on its own Android open source OS as well.

We will keep you posted on that.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: Google.