This weekend I went in to the store to replace my phone. At the store I was absolutely shocked when the sales rep told me that Windows Mobile 7 WON’T natively sync with Outlook. I didn’t believe him.
But, in doing research I found this…:
- http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeappcompat/thread/52957752-f6f6-47ad-b3dd-f0d9fb2861a2/
- http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/winphone/forum/wp7-sync/will-wp7-sync-with-outlook/61013923-59ab-4a24-becf-969db0ad2702
WM7 will sync with exchange or via the cloud, but it lacks native support for tasks!
Whatever tools you use, you must be able to carry your Calendar, Contacts and Tasks with you wherever you go. If you’re using a tool with one of these three things missing, you have a productivity tool flawed at it’s core.
Frankly, I was a bit shamed personally that I wasn’t aware of the problem until now. I’d like to think I’m on top of these things, but I missed this one. This experience illustrates how much of a moving target technology truly is.
It also illustrates that tech companies, given enough time, are very likely to shoot themselves in the foot. Microsoft did that here. Big time. Microsoft has had the new Windows Phone 7 OS on the market for many months now and hasn’t made an effort to resolve the problem. They may not ever.
Any phone and software can work with my time management program, but some work easier and better than others. So, in short, this means that for the time being I will now recommend Google calendar and Android phones to my clients who need guidance.
P.S. And for those wondering why I recommend Android over iPhone the answer is one word: Tasks. If Apple decides to start natively supporting tasks, please let me know. But in the meantime, iPhone is second choice to Android for productivity.Google’s tasks support is meager, but at least it works and it’s built in to the program.
To quote Alan Hardisty: “I object to having to pay for an application that makes a phone work when it should work without it in the first place.”
