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AOL Partners With Funambol For Mobile Syncing

AOL rolled out a beta for an interesting new syncing option for mobile phone users, aptly named AOL Sync. It's powered by the open source mobile push email and sync provider, Funambol. This free service looks like a good alternative to Apple's often-maligned MobileMe or as a convenient way to keep an online backup copy of your phone's contacts in case of data loss.

AOL Sync lets users sync their AOL calendar and address book with most mobile phones currently on the market, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile, and even syncs with the Microsoft Outlook mail client. AOL Sync uses Funambol's push technology to continuously update the users phone and AOL account in real-time fashion.

I took AOL Sync for a quick test drive and found it very easy to configure, both online and on my BlackBerry Curve. Online setup took about a minute, and the verification and link to the phone software arrived on my BlackBerry seconds after I requested it.

If you already use Funambol's software on your mobile phone, you'll still want to attempt to download it again during the AOL account setup process. If you already have the newest version of Funambol, you'll receive an alert telling you that no further download is necessary.

Once you established an account with AOL, simply add your user name and password to the apps "Settings" screen on your phone and let it sync. I have over 100 names in my address book and a very active calendar, yet my first sync took less than two minutes. Subsequent changes I made either online or on my phone showed up nearly instantly.

My BlackBerry service provider is T-Mobile and I had no syncing or download issues. However, if you have a Motorola or Nokia phone through T-Mobile, be aware that your phone isn't supported yet. According to an AOL spokesperson, "Carriers in the U.S., such as T-Mobile, carefully control what features on the phone are available to consumers on their network. We were under the impression that T-Mobile disabled the native sync-ml clients on these phones."

Hal Steger, VP Marketing at Funambol, explains further, "The current T-Mobile USA 'branded"' phones do not have a built-in SyncML client anymore (one of their Motorola phones still does, it's a Mobile Linux model, we checked it out a few weeks ago, but it's the exception). These phones have had their built-in SyncML clients 'de-featured', a fancy term for taken off the handset by T-Mobile."

Since I don't use currently use AOL's portal, email, or calendaring, I wasn't sure how useful this app would be for me. I wanted to give it a whirl, though, because I'm always happy to support a company that uses open source tools. Although I may never be a heavy user of AOL's services, I think AOL Sync is great way to keep a backup of my phone's contact list in case the unthinkable happens. Since smartphones like the BlackBerry Storm and Apple iPhone aimed at regular consumers and not just businesspeople, AOL Sync also looks like a great way for novice computer users to manage data across devices.

• aol
• Funambol
• mobile sync
• smartphones

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