Unrelated to the prime theme of your post, I understand that a new Directors Cut of Blade Runner is being released for the Holiday’s. The primary reason for another Directors Cut is to honor the 25th anniversary of the film. Ridley Scott apparently shot about 6 hours of film and some of the plot was changed in the released version. Who knew that Rick Deckard was a replicant himself?

I am looking forward to this new version.

Nice post.

One thing you’ve never mentioned is Groove. (Is that what you use to syncH your multiple computurs? It’s how I syncH mine.) Groove is a great compromise between user transparency and user control…it’s something that Ray Ozzie got right. The power and ubiquitous applicability of transparent syncHing is eye opening …it should be built in to Vista, instead being buried in an Office bundle. If you haven’t played with it, give it a whirl…

tHom
(silent H’s rule!)

I’m glad to see this post from you. To me, synchronization is a logical progression from syndication. It’s an order of magnitude or two more complicated–and valuable.

Sync is hard, but in my experience the real challenge is mapping disparate data models for things like calendar events, contacts, etc., and overlaying sync operations on top of that map. It’s ridiculously statefull, and it’s managing the state changes that can get tricky.

Microsoft has the opportunity to do something really slick here, since they own the stack all the way from your Windows PC and Windows Mobile device through the Live platform and applications.

I’ll be interested to see if Microsoft leaves any significant white space for third parties in their sync regime. I doubt it. I think MS has made the realization Apple did years ago: third-party developers are great, but there’s a war on (again) and it’s being fought between the giants. If a few small guys get stepped on during the fight, well, that’s just too bad.

Frankly, I think that’s the right decision for them. They’re no longer bootstrapping an ecosystem–they’re hunting in it.

-c