Microsoft now seems to be following in the footsteps of Apple with their Mobile Me service – with their My Phone service. I can only cover my eyes in advance of what could or could not happen. One would have to hope that the powers that be use the great Live Mesh framework that I am enjoying (yes I do use and like some of Microsoft's technology) however looking at the list of what you CAN do – actually reads more like what you cant do:

What information can I back up on Microsoft My Phone?

• If you have an active connection with Microsoft Exchange server (which is frequently used for corporate e-mail), My Phone will not synchronize your contacts, calendar appointments, or tasks.
• If you have Windows Live installed on your phone, it will synchronize your Windows Live contacts with the Windows Live web site, and My Phone will synchronize your other contacts to your account on the My Phone web site.
• If you have an external memory card and selected My Phone's recommended settings, information on the external memory card will not be synchronized.
• If you store contacts on the SIM card provided by your mobile operator, My Phone will not synchronize these contacts.
• If you have any documents stored outside the My Documents folder on your phone, My Phone will not synchronize these documents.

So great.. As the world of mobile and converged devices moves quickly into the realms of delivering applications that people would use across devices – Microsoft delivers yet another howler! Perhaps Microsoft don’t get the memos that the rest of the technology world gets and acts upon – look at Zune for a really bad execution of a CE MP3 player… and yet they still try to move ahead with DRM and the Zune experience

Oh yeah and the biggest stumbling block is that you must have a handset that is running Windows Mobile 6+ OS. Even though the last report showed that Microsoft were severely losing the battle to RIM, Apple (MS lost 3% growth YoY while Apple enjoyed a 300+% and RIM 81% increases YoY) – and with Google and Palm coming back harder than ever – I’m not sure that Windows Mobile really has a distinct future in the realm of the converged device. Steve Ballmer discussed the converged device at this years CES – therefore why push an application at a failing mobile OS – where you should be opening up the service to compete with Google and Apple – by making their service available on ANY handset. If in the end it is simply a secure website that is storing all your data (just as O2’s Bluebook as a poor example) should be as simple as synchronising data that is on your device – make it simple for the user to, at a touch of a button, back up all the data that they deem important to them.

Anyway – I will hold judgement on this until all the details are out – I’m sure my colleague JT will have his own thoughts on this – but first read through doesn't deliver any sense that Microsoft are getting the mobile space at all and what consumers really look for with their converged device – especially with a 200Mb initial “free” limit on data!! Goodness were into 32Gb mini-SD cards now – and as Ballmer talked about converged devices an initial 200mb limit isn't really going to cut the mustard!