News

A new standard for PDA diary data is to be revealed

No two phones store data the same way. No two PDAs use the same format. No email system matches any of the above. Industry leaders from Lotus to Nokia have decided to deal with the problem

You know how it is. You put diary appointment into your PDA and synced it with your laptop. Meanwhile someone in the office has scheduled you for a meeting at the same time on the network calender.

And at the same time, you are trying to figure out how you can get this data into your mobile so that it can call and remind you about the meeting - without your having to go through the rigmorole of keying it all in again.

Then your pager goes off ...

Things aren't too jolly if you are a manufacturer of said devices. Every time you want to add a data-syncing capability to your spanking new technological marvel you wearily return to the drawing board and draw yet another circular device with a hole in the middle for the axle - you re-invent the wheel.

Now the likes of IBM, Ericcson, Nokia, Starfish, Lotus and Motorola have cried "Enough!" They have come together to define a single data-synching standard for all these devices under the title of the SyncML Initiative.

The new standard should be available in outline, soon. Members of the Initiative will be showcasing the fruits of their labours at the SyncML Congress 2002 in Amsterdam between the 28th and 30th of January. Among the speakers will be IBM's James Jennings and Teemu Torai of Nokia. Delegates will have the opportunity to see SyncML technologies in action and talk to members of the consortium.