Will Microsoft’s OneNote Mobile Update and SharePoint Mobile Client Depend on Useless Tethered Syncs?

Someday someone will write a case study about Microsoft missed mobile opportunities to tie in their own products to Windows Mobile. Microsoft bought and had Hotmail up and running many years before Google’s Gmail. The same goes for a web-based calendar, contacts, and even Exchange Server ActiveSync. Then, there’s the half-hearted attempts like the travesty that was Access for the Handheld PC back in the 1990s and OneNote Mobile during Office 2007′s development period. I was excited about OneNote Mobile (see my 2005 blog item below)…

Microsoft OneNote Mobile 12 Beta-1 for Windows Mobile Smartphones

…until I actually tried it. Even, then, in the pre-Evernote mobile days, OneNote Mobile seemed to have promise until it deleted my entire OneNote notes collection (I had a backup though). Since then, I’ve moved to Evernote and never looked back.

According to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is taking another crack at OneNote Mobile and adding some kind of SharePoint integration for Windows Mobile…

Microsoft to add OneNote and SharePoint clients to next Office Mobile release?

But, why would anyone want to use OneNote with Windows Mobile when Evernote already does a good job of synching Windows Mobile smarpthones with their cloud service? I haven’t seen anyone using OneNote in years. And, if SharePoint Mobile requires ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) to sync with a SharePoint server, you will always have stale data on your Windows Mobile smartphone. I hope Microsoft bypasses ActiveSync and WMDC on the client in favor of OTA (Over The Air).

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