Do IT Simply with Sync

That's my takeaway from MIX08 and Microsoft chief software architect's convoluted keynote speech. Synchronization matters most, and Microsoft is starting to understand why and to see how.

I stand by my previous assertion that Ray Ozzie said nothing new, even as the Web starts to buzz about his "mesh" talk. Microsoft PR is in damage control mode: "OMG! Ray's message didn't get through!" Someone from Microsoft contacted me about Ozzie's mesh perspective on Thursday. My eWEEK colleague Darryl Taft had one of the better stories on the mesh, yesterday.

Sorry, but there wasn't any new message to get through. Ozzie told an old story, and it's not clear whether or not there will be a Microsoft happy ending.

Ozzie's mesh talk is really about synchronization, something Microsoft has royally screwed up for years. Apple has done much better than Microsoft but put the synchronization engine in the wrong place. Google Gears is decidedly on the right synchronization trajectory, but it hasn't yet reached escape velocity.

Consumers and IT organizations share similar synchronization needs as information traverses multiple, overlapping personal and professional devices and services.

Right Idea, Wrong Place
Synchronization is the natural killer application for the connected world. People use multiple devices, software products and IP/Web services. Information spreads out across these devices, requiring unnecessary rekeying and duplication. Synchronization would solve these problems and make content more useful across devices or services.

Microsoft should have sought a workable solution as soon as Apple released iSync. Apple started down the right path: Making the operating system the synchronization hub for multiple devices and services. The approach made loads of sense in January 2003.

Problem: Apple had started down a competing synchronization path two years earlier. The iPod/iTunes model succeeded for many reasons, but synchronization was fundamental. Sync is the killer user interface for iPod/iTunes. Apple applied similar synchronization principles to other products, like iPhoto. But iTunes became Apple's main sync engine, almost to a fault: Why should the music software be the sync hub for iPhone, particularly when activated or used by enterprises? But that's the software Apple had developed for Mac OS and Windows both and which popularity spread with iPod.

Apple does sync very well, better than any other technology company, but the music player is the wrong place for long-term success. The sync engine needs to be at least part of the operating system and, five years later, the server cloud and cell phone make even more sense.

Microsoft talked about operating system sync during its developer conference in October 2003. Longhorn was supposed to pack a flexible synchronization layer. But sync got dumped overboard with many other features. Windows Vista has some synch capabilities, but no real platform for other products.

Too bad. Microsoft could have solved its Google/Web 2.0 platform problems simply with sync (assuming anyone adopted Windows Vista, which arguably is a hard sell). By successfully making Windows the synchronization hub, Microsoft could have pulled computational and informational relevance back to the desktop from the Web. But Vista didn't deliver sync and failed to meet "Wow" expectations.

Whither the Sync Hub?
Google has turned its attention to solving the sync problem in the server cloud down to the desktop, starting with Gears, and on mobiles with Android. Microsoft should be extremely concerned. As I blogged back in June: "Synchronization is the killer app that will determine whether desktop software maintains its relevance or the Web becomes the more popular platform."

Microsoft had some time to muddle along, because potential sync platforms like Facebook or MySpace are one-way services. Data easily goes in, but it doesn't easily come out. Too bad. Facebook would be a natural synchronization hub back to PCs, cell phones and other devices people use everyday.

But Facebook wrongly views the value of its social graph data. The real value isn't pulling people into the service by holding onto their data. Facebook could be huge by enabling synchronization with connected devices or services. I've said before that Facebook is like an operating system in the cloud; it's similarities to Windows are striking, but the base platform is the Web rather than the PC. Facebook missed the obvious opportunity to lock in customers through useful synchronization back to their devices and other services. Facebook should be a social hub with long spokes.

Google executives understand, and they're positioning the cloud as the hub. Should Google get synchronization right before Microsoft, it would be game over. Google would be able to extend the relevancy of the Web platform back to the desktop on its terms—think invading army—and across many devices or services.

If I rightly understood Ozzie, Microsoft gets it, too. The company is finally really trying to solve the synchronization problem. If Microsoft gets sync right, it can drive computing and informational relevancy the other way, invading Google's turf. Microsoft appears committed to a multiple synchronization approach, which is fine. What the company needs first: A viable, common synchronization platform for the PC, mobile and Web.

Playing the Wild Cards
The mobile phone is perhaps a more attractive synchronization hub than either the PC or server cloud. Manufacturers ship more than 1 billion cell phones each year worldwide compared to a few hundred million PCs. Cell phones are captive devices. Most people have one. Cell phones are natural communication devices, and increasingly beyond telephony to some of the so-called social meshes that Ozzie described.

Apple sync should really bother Microsoft executives. Apple already has a well-developed and superbly executed synchronization strategy, aside from iTunes' questionable role as hub. The iPhone is immensely popular, with scores of well-known Web services, including Facebook, offering up pages specially formatted for the device. The device already is becoming a social communications hub, and long before the release of last week's iPhone SDK.

Apple could do a whole lot more with synchronization from iTunes and .Mac to iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch, Macs and Apple TV—at least for consumers. That said, iPhone Exchange Server synchronization is big enterprise mobile. Apple has got most of the pieces in place for its own mesh, and CEO Steve Jobs started talking about hubs in 2000—long before Microsoft executives.

Nokia is another manufacturer to closely watch. The company clearly understands the importance of the mobile phone as a hub for reaching other products or services. Cell phones like the N82 and N95 pack high-megapixel cameras and flashes—with convenient uploading to Flickr—high-quality video capture and playback, live blogging and many other social enabling capabilities. Nokia doesn't have a common synchronization engine, but the company clearly understands sync benefits coming from a mobile hub.

In closing, if I misunderstood Ozzie's convoluted mesh talk and it wasn't about synchronization across devices and services: Uh-oh, Microsoft missed the killer app for today's connected world. That would be one hell of a sorry state and real gloom hanging over the company's Web services strategy.