Yesterday, Google announced a new beta version of their Sync service. It’s exactly what many Google Calendar users have been waiting for. It lets you synchronize your contacts and calendar events between ‘gcal’ and your iPhone, Blackberry or Windows Mobile smartphone. There’s also a Symbian (SyncML) version, but that does contacts only. But what puzzles me is why.

I’ve been using GooSync to sync my calendar, and their free service has been great. It’s a little limited (no contacts, one calendar only), but it works flawlessly. GooSync uses SyncML, an open standard supported by many handset and PDA manufacturers. So when I read about Google own SyncML option I was fully expecting it to sync my calendar. But alas. Google’s implementation does contacts only.

This got me thinking. Symbian made headlines last year because it plans to go open source. That means they’ll be entering Android territory. Perhaps Google’s little robot isn’t planning on a long time symbiosis with Nokia’s mobile platform? They wouldn’t… or would they?

I’ve always found syncing calendars to be troublesome at best. I used a Palm III years ago, and even the software that Palm supplied was hard to set up and buggy as hell. Most sync tools nowadays assume you’re using Outlook, but if you’re using Google Calendar you probably aren’t. The whole point with “GCal” is that it’s the web 2.0 alternative to Microsoft’s horrible PIM.

Now that I run my own company, I have to have my appointments handy at all times. I hate those bundled stacks of paper that some people use to jot down their schedule, so syncing my calendar of choice suddenly became a priority. unfortunately, Google does not offer something similar to their brilliant mobile gmail software to access your GCal. While googling for solutions I found two interesting options.
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