Microsoft My Phone officially launched

MWC 2009: Sync your phone with the cloud

16 February 2009 10:48 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Microsoft has officially announced the launch of a My Phone service, as it looks to offer mobile phone users its own way of syncing their handset with their PC.

The new service, called My Phone, will allow anyone to sync contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, photos, videos, text messages, music, and documents to a remote drive so they always have a backup in case they lose their phone or it's stolen.

"We want to make it easy for people to backup their data on their phones", a spokesman told Pocket-lint.

The service, which is expected to go live shortly, will offer users 200MB of storage space for free and work with all Windows Mobile 6.1 handsets currently on the market.

The information will be then available to view and manage by using a web browser with no software to install. The move will mean PC and Mac users will be able to benefit.

Microsoft confirmed to Pocket-lint that service would be free, however certain features could be chargeable in the future.

One such feature that could get a cost associated with it is the ability to wipe your phone's data remotely if it is lost or stolen. Currently available for Microsoft Exchange users, our man in Microsoft wasn't sure it would be a free add-on if and when it became available.

The news comes as Google announced its own syncing service for Windows Mobile OS users earlier in the month. The free mobile app will allow users to sync contacts and calendar information with its Google Calendar and Gmail services.

We will keep you posted.

Full tags

Phones, Apps, Microsoft, MWC2009