Sharing Information Across PC, Web and Mobile

Sharing Information Across a PC, the Web & Mobile

By J. Gerry Purdy, VP & Chief Analyst, Mobile & Wireless, Frost & Sullivan           
            

I’m sure that you need at times to get access to information located on the Web or in our PC while mobile. Take the case of having some favorite photos that you‚d like to have available on your mobile phone to share with friends. Or, you might like to share a photo album via the Web with family and friends. Or, you might want to keep your contacts and calendar on one system, in sync‚ between two computers and the Web and your phone. Or, you might want to share the latest version of a (possibly large) file with a number of others.

The problem of information sharing is very simple to define and visualize, but it’s actually quite difficult to actually do in a manner that works technically and is also easy-to-use. Here’s why.

There are a number of different data types that users can create on a PC or Mac.
           
           
All of a sudden, you have a tremendous technical challenge if you want to share and view files across a PC to the Web to a mobile phone. On top of this, mobile represents another challenge not typically found between the PC and the Web: the screens are smaller and the files may have to be modified in order to provide a good viewing experience on the smaller device.

One of the first companies that attempted to do this was FusionOne. They raised over $100 million in venture capital. They were going to create data centers around the world to store the information shared via the Web, and they attempted to allow users to view information on their phone. They found it too difficult and ended up focusing their technology in one area: backing up data on cell phones that has become a viable business for them.

A few companies have recently developed technology that re-addresses the sharing and viewing of information across the PC/MAC, the web and the phone. Apple has launched MobileMe for $99 per year that allows users to sync information from their PC, Mac, the web and their iPhone. There were a number of technical difficulties when it was first introduced that Apple has since resolved, which demonstrates how difficult it is to solve this problem elegantly. Remember, this is a sub-set of the more generic problem as MobileMe isn’t designed to be a backup service (although it does achieve that for calendar and contact information) and it only syncs to the iPhone (not other mobile devices).

Sharpcast announced SugarSync earlier this year and has received rave reviews. They provide backup and viewing for many file types, especially photos. But, they do not currently back up Outlook PST files or sync Outlook contact or calendar entries across the Web and on to mobile phones although they have told me they will provide support for such services in 2009. SugarSync is priced according to the amount of information that is backed up and ranges from $2.49/month for 2GB to $24.95/month for 250GB. I like SugarSync’s user interface. The product is easy-to-use even though it won’t yet back up all of the data on your system. It does an excellent job backing up and then enabling viewing on the Web and phone for the file types it does support.

The key to enabling an information sharing and syncing service is to manage the meta data‚ around the actual data. If I define a JPEG image file, part of the information is the type of file (JPEG) and information about the image (resolution, date & time it was taken and, possibly, the location). It might also contain a simple thumbnail‚ version of the image that provides a peek‚ into the actual image. Thumbnails are useful when viewing lots of images so that you can see what’s in the image without actually having to open it.

Soonr is another young company that has developed a solution for sharing and remote access of user‚s information that is sold through telecom and SAAS providers under their own brands. Soonr integrates collaboration, continuous backup with versioning, and abilities to easily find, monitor, and take action on documents even when all you have is a mobile phone. They’ve developed browser-based mobile applications and so far the service has been used on over 800 different devices. Most recently, Soonr has added an iPhone native client, leveraging many parts of the existing mobile web-application. Pat McVeigh, a long time friend, is Soonr’s CEO. You‚ll be hearing more about Soonr next year as they broaden their market from Europe into the US.

Systems like Sharpcast’s SugarSync focus on syncing and sharing the meta data first and the actual file later. Thus, when you add a photo to a folder, SugarSync uploads the meta data very quickly so it appears to be on the Web and the mobile device when, in fact, the full file (or appropriate subset on the mobile device) shows up later. Sharpcast has developed a way to work in the background uploading files while the user‚s system is fully available. They compress and do some novel things so that it appears to be uploading data faster than the underlying link.

The key to companies like Sharpcast and Soonr is how fast they get adopted by the large players in the Internet and mobile space. Sharpcast offers the SugarSync service to end users, but their future success is tied to how soon they are adopted by companies like Earthlink, Comcast and AT&T Wireless that will provide millions of customers with their information sharing and syncing service.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out other successful information sharing services like KodakGallery (photos only), HP Shutterfly (photos only), FTP (any file to/from the Web but not viewing), YouTube (video only up to 10 min.) and Google Documents (allows users to store their latest files and others to access thus always having the latest version of the file). And, social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace allow users to upload specific information from their PC and share it with friends. These services are not designed, however, to store all of the information on a user’s system.

Information sharing and viewing across PCs, Macs, the Web and mobile is different from just doing backup and is a much harder problem to solve. In the future, I’d like to see a service like SugarSync (or some other company) provide users with the ability to share photos, videos and just about any file type across multiple PCs, the Web and mobile. Someday –  I hope within five years –  all of us will use such an information sharing and syncing service and wonder how we got along without it before.