FJ Software

MPE is fantastic but I'm considering that a) high-end phone are becoming more and more popular b) UIQ is almost dead and MPE is risking to become in the near future a niche product. I wonder if you're evaluating the possibility to add to MPE SyncML capabilities (i.e. to add it a SyncML server). I understand that SyncML standard could not be...a real standard so far but...

Which is you view on this ?

There is already a SyncML-Server inside MPE. It's use e.g. for working with Symbian-based phones.
However, if you searched the forum, you would have found, that FJ said, that it is not as easy to use SyncML with every phone or so. It is a standard, yes, but every manufacturer (of the phones) implemented on their own way.
Makes a much sense, such a standard, isn't it?

thanks for your usual prompt reply and I'm happy to hear that there already is a syncml server inside MPE. I meant something different: I was hoping for a server OUTSIDE MPE, accessible from a syncml client, not limited to a Symbian UIQ phone.

I did searched the forum (at least the english part as the google translation of a german text is too time consuming if even readable) without finding anything; however if you read my post I anticipated what you were saying about the syncml standard. Despite that people like Funambol, Synthesis, etc. are coping the problem in a brilliant way

Even if it would be OUTSIDE of MPE then you still need a way for communicatiing. And this thing is diffrent for every manufacturer. The other Point is that SyncML handles only the History and the Sync-Flow. The data itself are still diffrent. There are diffrent fields and fieldsizes. To make this compatible with all phones is a endless task. You cannot send a formated text to the phone in hope that its displayed correctly. Simple example: If you want to delete a single phonenumber in a UIQ-Phone (only the number, not the contact itself) then you have to send the full contact but with a special flag so that the phone knows which number to delete, otherwise the number will not be deleted - this behavior is only for UIQ-Phones. Funambol works, but did you ever try to sync Funambol with Thunderbird or Outlook ? Then you have the first problem with diffrent fields and fieldlengths.

I see your point. What is REALLY scaring me is your sentence "To make this compatible with all phones is a endless task."

Nevertheless I confirm that I see a tough choice for MPE: either it will change something to support also high-end devices or it will become a niche product for "only" a decreasing number of SE low-end phones.

Of course your view on this could be highly appreciated by the most number of the members of the forum (including my self, of course) but if I know you...

Nevertheless I confirm that I see a tough choice for MPE: either it will change something to support also high-end devices or it will become a niche product for "only" a decreasing number of SE low-end phones.

Thats not true i think. There are about 70 models which i know from SE and 60 of them are supported from MPE. Also high-enders such as W960i, P1i, C905 are very well supported. OK, the X1 is also not supported but this is another story...

But its right that its better to make a perfect app for one manufacturer than to make a crappy solution which should work also with other brands but only with problems.

FJ, very quickly just to better clarify two points:

1) You get me wrong: you say "Also high-enders such as W960i, P1i, C905 are very well supported". Absolutely !!! And MPE supports them better than anything else !!!

2) In the next future UIQ phones will disappear, not replaced by other UIQ models; at the same time the market will be more and more focused on devices with symbian, android, webOS etc.. This is the period I'm concerned for.

2) You are right, it seems the new "iPhone-Clone" from SE will run on Symbian S60. We will see what the time brings, if this models have success then i will try to implement it. Its a shame that UIQ is dead cause it was really alot of work to implement this. I did this implementation for UIQ - so why not for S60 ? But i will keep my playground on SonyEricsson.