[missing-sync-winmobile-talk] Re: missing-sync-winmobile-talk Digest, Vol 35, Issue 8

[Dan Ellis]

>>  I just looked up a press release -- Microsoft released WM5 to
>>  manufacturers on May 10. So it's been out for six months at this
>>  point. If not enough time for a WM5-compatible release, it's
>>  certainly been long enough for a *projection* of a release date.

It's pretty interesting to speculate about, though.  Either (a) they're
not working on it yet (!?!), which seems inconceivable given that as far
as I understand this is their core business, or (b) they are encountering
problems which they simply have no clue how to fix, so they can't put a
date on how long it will take them to get the inspiration.

It makes me think about how I'd try to solve this problem.  Given no
co-operation from Microsoft regarding the format, you'd have to put
protocol analyzers on the communications link between Active Sync on a
PC and the WM5 device, and try to reverse-engineer what it's doing.
Microsoft could make this arbitrarily difficult if they wanted to 
(for instance, by encrypting the link, or making the bytestream so
convoluted that is as good as encrypted).

My new Axim x51v is my first ever Windows machine.  I'm very struck how
it really functions as a peripheral to its presumed Windows parent,
unlike my old Palm which felt more like a stand-alone device.  Maybe
Microsoft sees WM5 as a marketing advantage for PCs over Macs, and has
set out deliberately to make Mark/Space's job as hard as possible.
Maybe we will *never* see Missing Sync for WM5 -- which falls within the
bounds specified so far by Mark/Space (and which is too bad for me since
I already bought it before realizing it was useless to me until WM5
support appears).

  DAn.