SyncML

• Article 21 of 25
• Infoconomist, September 2002
• View the original article online

One of the lessons from the history of the technology industry is that where Apple leads, other vendors tend to follow. Now that the computer giant has come out in support of Synchronised Mark-up Language (SyncML), a data synchronisation standard that has been waiting for a serious backer for years, the technology might finally stand a chance of success.

Apple has a tradition of bringing overlooked technology to mainstream success. With captive and loyal Macintosh owners using whatever Apple dictates, the company's endorsement of a technology means that its vendors immediately have an audience for their products. Universal Serial Bus (USB) languished as an interface standard for peripherals until Apple chose it for its iMac computer range. Wireless local area networking protocol 802.11 had little support until Apple incorporated it across its entire range of products.

Thus, Apple's July 2002 announcement that it will back SyncML seems likely to revive the technology's flagging fortunes. The computer company has signed up to the SyncML Initiative, enabling it to influence future developments of the standard. It is also using SyncML as the basis of a free program - dubbed iSync - for its Mac OS X operating system. Mac users with Bluetooth phones (a low-power networking system that enables devices to communicate wirelessly over short ranges) will be able to synchronise their phones' address-books and calendars with OS X whenever they are in range of their computers.

While it has had some high-profile backers, including SyncML Initiative founders Nokia, IBM, Symbian and Motorola, few have produced SyncML-enabled products. And Microsoft is a notable absence from the consortium, preferring to concentrate on its proprietary ActiveSync technology.

But a hitherto lack of serious support does not mean the technology is unappealing. Unlike some other synchronisation technologies, SyncML enables data-synchronisation to occur continuously between devices. It can work over the Internet, Bluetooth, infrared and e-mail. If there are disruptions to signals, synchronisation can continue when the disruptions stop. And future versions of the standard are likely to support relational databases for enterprise applications, WAP and web bookmarks and even game scores for the consumer market.

SyncML, to a large degree, relies on wireless connections. Without a wireless link between devices, users need “cradles” for their PDAs and USB cables for their phones if they want to connect them to their computers - neutralising SyncML's advantages over existing synchronisation technology and its “always-on” capabilities.

Motorola has just one SyncML compatible handset, despite being a member of the SyncML Initiative and having acquired Starfish, one of the original developers of SyncML, in 1998. While it ships most of its handsets with synchronisation software from Starfish, the software can only synchronise Palm PDAs, Microsoft Outlook and Motorola handsets using SyncML's capabilities if the user connects up all the devices first. So the only SyncML implementations to take advantage of its always-on capabilities have been via web portals - wireless-Internet-enabled phones synchronise with a web portal that can then synchronise with a computer.

Apple is the first operating system vendor to incorporate Bluetooth support and SyncML capabilities into its software. And despite leaving it out from its initial release, Microsoft promises to include Bluetooth support in the first service pack for Windows XP. Bluetooth's adoption should soon begin to take off and SyncML's should follow soon afterwards.

The results are already clear. In a symbolic move, SonyEricsson, the mobile phone joint venture whose parent companies traditionally have been hostile towards the Macintosh platform, says it will endorse iSync. The gesture has been reciprocated by Apple, which has made SonyEricsson's phones the only handsets supported by iSync in its initial release. Mac users that want to synchronise their contacts and calendars with their phones using iSync will buy SonyEricsson handsets.

Other handset manufacturers will be able to incorporate SyncML and Bluetooth into their phones, knowing that there is a ready market for the technologies. And then Windows developers of SyncML technology - such as Starfish - will be able to bundle their software with the handsets to exploit the far larger market Windows users will provide. Suddenly, SyncML is fashionable again.