iPhone MobileMe wipe, sync, location features planned by Microsoft, RIM
Features similar to Apple's MobileMe service for iPhone users are now under development for RIM's BlackBerry and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 devices.
Apple introduced MobileMe back in 2008 as an enhanced version of its .Mac program. The revamped online service brought features familiar to enterprise environments to consumers, including the ability to remotely wipe a lost or stolen device; remote location, messaging and alarms for finding a misplaced device; sync and push messaging features including mail, calendar and contacts; and a Gallery service for uploading and sharing pictures and videos.
In the two years since, Microsoft announced its own SkyBox service for Windows Mobile which was later renamed My Phone.
That offering, based on software Microsoft acquired from a Portuguese developer, is now being eclipsed by a new product named Windows Phone Live, aimed at Windows Phone 7, which is expected to ship at the end of this year.
Unlike MobileMe, Microsoft plans to offer its messaging sync, cloud storage, and location/wipe service for free, according to the official Windows Phone blog.
There has been some speculation that Apple would also begin offering a free tier of its MobileMe service. A free competing service may help push Apple in that direction, if Microsoft is more successful in launching Windows Phone 7 than it was with its KIN fiasco, a partnership with Verizon Wireless that was canceled just weeks after its ostentatious launch.
RIM is also getting into the consumer remote management business with its new BlackBerry Protect service. It similarly offers backups, remote wipe and location services (but not push messaging or cloud storage) and is expected to free as well. The service is currently in beta.
Google added partial support in Android for corporate Exchange Server remote management, wipe and sync features, but has not announced any plans to offer a package of remote find/wipe, push messaging, and cloud storage features aimed at consumers for free or as a paid service.
Apple introduced MobileMe back in 2008 as an enhanced version of its .Mac program. The revamped online service brought features familiar to enterprise environments to consumers, including the ability to remotely wipe a lost or stolen device; remote location, messaging and alarms for finding a misplaced device; sync and push messaging features including mail, calendar and contacts; and a Gallery service for uploading and sharing pictures and videos.
In the two years since, Microsoft announced its own SkyBox service for Windows Mobile which was later renamed My Phone.
That offering, based on software Microsoft acquired from a Portuguese developer, is now being eclipsed by a new product named Windows Phone Live, aimed at Windows Phone 7, which is expected to ship at the end of this year.
Unlike MobileMe, Microsoft plans to offer its messaging sync, cloud storage, and location/wipe service for free, according to the official Windows Phone blog.
There has been some speculation that Apple would also begin offering a free tier of its MobileMe service. A free competing service may help push Apple in that direction, if Microsoft is more successful in launching Windows Phone 7 than it was with its KIN fiasco, a partnership with Verizon Wireless that was canceled just weeks after its ostentatious launch.
RIM is also getting into the consumer remote management business with its new BlackBerry Protect service. It similarly offers backups, remote wipe and location services (but not push messaging or cloud storage) and is expected to free as well. The service is currently in beta.
Google added partial support in Android for corporate Exchange Server remote management, wipe and sync features, but has not announced any plans to offer a package of remote find/wipe, push messaging, and cloud storage features aimed at consumers for free or as a paid service.
Comments
I would expect nothing less from the great copiers up north.
say what you will about MS, if they offered me a job, i'd take it in a heartbeat, sit back and take a paycheck paid by their windows monopoly.
say what you will about MS, if they offered me a job, i'd take it in a heartbeat, sit back and take a paycheck paid by their windows monopoly.
That's what Ballmer's been doing for the last decade.
This is why apple needs to make MobileMe free ASAP
If you're leading, you only need to go fast enough to win. If you're trailing, you need to go as fast as you can. And right now, Apple is leading many areas of the technology industry.
Apple can take a wait-and-see approach to Microsoft and RIM (and eventually Google.) If MobileMe competitors start to somehow hurt Apple's business, Apple can make part of MobileMe free, and keep some deluxe features for paid subscribers.
Another advantage to the wait-and-see approach is that the competitors are copying the existing MobileMe. Apple is no doubt working on a next-gen MobileMe, which they won't roll out until Microsoft, RIM, and Google have copied the old one. And just when those competitors start to brag about how good their MobileMe clone is, Apple can release a polished upgrade to the real MobileMe. It'll make the competition look obsolete.
Better to wait for everyone else to make their mistakes in public. That's one reason why the iPad announcement came *after* CES. To keep the wannabes in the dark until they were forced to demo their own bad ideas for "slate computing."
The ONLY, and I do mean only reason I've kept my MobileMe account for the past several years is because my wife didn't want to give up her "@mac.com" e-mail address. So I've paid $100 per year for that (yeah, no one to blame but myself...and my wife of course
Now however, she is finally giving it up for a gmail account. So buh-bye MobileMe...unless of course they finally make it free; kind of like all those various apps I've bought (TextWrangler anyone?) only for said apps to be made free months later
<sigh>Either way, I won't be paying for it anymore!
...Better to wait for everyone else to make their mistakes in public. That's one reason why the iPad announcement came *after* CES. To keep the wannabes in the dark until they were forced to demo their own bad ideas for "slate computing."
That was a good move. The Microsoft-HP-Slate thing was a massive pie in Ballmer's face.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/...berry-protect/
Microsoft plans to offer its messaging sync, cloud storage, and location/wipe service for free, according to the official Windows Phone blog.
Squirt wipe™.
The ONLY, and I do mean only reason I've kept my MobileMe account for the past several years is because my wife didn't want to give up her "@mac.com" e-mail address. So I've paid $100 per year for that (yeah, no one to blame but myself...and my wife of course
Now however, she is finally giving it up for a gmail account. So buh-bye MobileMe...unless of course they finally make it free; kind of like all those various apps I've bought (TextWrangler anyone?) only for said apps to be made free months later
<sigh>Either way, I won't be paying for it anymore!
This is the same reason why I dumped MobileMe. I'm not going to have my email held hostage for $100/year if I don't want the service anymore. It's a good service but should be free.
About time apple updated MobileMe, we can't spent that much money these days for such low storage and iDisk errors. Mm is a decent service but desperately needs an upgrade, which is not of course lumping 6 icons into one...
About time you started getting with the groove. Apple has been transparently upgrading and updating MobileMe consistently over the past several months. With such web-based services, updates can be pushed up without any visible differences to the end users. Just recently, they introduced a brand new and wicked UI for MobileMe, and a Calendar beta is currently underway.
Google's suite of tools is supported by ads, as are many other "free" services. MobileMe doesn't infect my workspace with ads. I'm happy to pay the annual fee.
I can't believe some posts in this thread! Talk about cheap-skates. I agree that the cost of MobileMe should be built into their product purchases, but no way should it be just given away for free to anybody that comes along.
Google's suite of tools is supported by ads, as are many other "free" services. MobileMe doesn't infect my workspace with ads. I'm happy to pay the annual fee.
If I was to buy every little thing I wanted it would start to add up and I would have no money to do things I really want to do. It's not being cheap but being wise.
In regards to ads, I never see them. I use Mail.app and Mail on the iPhone which has no ads.
Copy? Blackberry has had these options for a decade! Their new service for consumers blows MobileMe out of the water! Apple will be the one playing catch up. (Especially after they send out 2 million bumpers for the iPhone 4)
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/...berry-protect/
Do you have the link touting those options a decade ago? I just want to compare what they had back in 2000 with the Consumer "BlackBerry Protect" 'just announced'....
"Find a nearby misplaced BlackBerry smartphone by remotely activating a loud ringer." My ten year old land line phone at home has this feature too...
Still, can't wait to se the first virus/trojan/exploit that starts remote wiping brand new winPhone 7's en masse.
It also doesn't surprise me that they are giving this access to consumers or that they are giving it away for free. The goal they have been aiming for seems to be for consumers to have Microsoft products as a front end using the cloud for data synchronization and services (as opposed to Google who want all applications to exist in the cloud and Apple who just want you to buy their hardware) and they have (at least to my knowledge!) the most free cloud space available to consumers of any service.
What would surprise me is if they are able to put a UI in front of this that makes it easy to use and accessible for non-tech customers. I can just imagine someones mum going into her Windows Phone Live account to find the backup of a photo she deleted by mistake only to remote wipe her entire phone
In any case this will at least prod Apple to push forward plans for their iDevice cloud services. Everyone knows they are sitting on something, it's just a matter of when they decide to reveal it!
I would expect nothing less from the great copiers up north.
It's a bit of a week copy argument. They haven't made any new actual technology as they predate apple at doing this with their enterprise clients. Putting it all on one public website is a copy but that's such a small part of it it makes it meaningless.