There is a growing need for wireless synchronization. Besides the obvious solution that goes by the name of BES (and the free BES Express), many companies have thrown their hat into the ring to provide users a way to feed that need. Some offer only contact, calendar and email synchronization, others offer only access to files. Today, the folks at Funambol decided to toss their own hat in and announced their beta for a ‘mobile cloud service’ for BlackBerry. Through Funambol BlackBerry service, you are able to sync pictures between your BlackBerry to your PC – or to numerous social networking sites (Facebook, Flicker, etc). You can also enjoy two-way synchronization with Outlook of contacts, calendar, tasks and note. All of this is done OTA and you can choose whether you want to manually sync or schedule automatic syncing.
Funambol is already up and running on other platforms and it’s about time that BlackBerry is shown some love as well. They say that their service is equivalent to what Android would expect from Google or what iPhone users get with MobileMe. Funambol is currently in beta and can be found in BlackBerry App World. Based on the reviews on BlackBerry App World, it’s been there since at least October. Full Press Release after the jump
More information/download of Funambol App
Funambol delivers missing link to PC and the cloud for BlackBerry users
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., February 3, 2011 – Funambol, the open source mobile cloud company, today launched a mobile cloud service that wirelessly syncs a BlackBerry with a PC and Outlook®, and it allows users to upload pictures to social networks and photo sites. The service is available in 'beta mode' via BlackBerry App World™ or at http://www.mm4bb.com. Wireless sync of BlackBerry PIM data has previously only been available to enterprise customers using dedicated software and hardware. Funambol provides the missing link for BlackBerry consumer users to wirelessly sync pictures and for business users to sync key data with Outlook, even without Exchange. The Funambol BlackBerry service syncs contacts, calendars, tasks, notes and pictures on a BlackBerry with the cloud. Once in the cloud, PIM data (e.g. contacts and calendars) can be automatically synced with Outlook. Device photos can be synced with popular cloud services such as Facebook, Flickr® and Picasa™ as well as a PC. The Funambol service is designed to support the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet once it becomes available. Funambol already supports iPad and Android tablets.
The service is based on the award-winning myFUNAMBOL Portal and provides beta users with a nominal amount of free cloud storage, sufficient for the wireless sync needs of most users. Plans are underway to provide additional storage space. Users will be able to access a premium service from either Funambol itself or a wireless service provider.\
"Connected devices are flooding the market - handsets, tablets and cloud services are essential for people to wirelessly sync core data like contacts, calendars and pictures," said Amit Chawla, Funambol CEO. "iPhone has MobileMe, Android has Google but until now, BlackBerry hasn't had an equivalent service. Funambol is delivering the missing link by giving BlackBerry consumer users a simple way to sync pictures to the cloud and PCs, and prosumers a way to sync contacts, calendars and more with Outlook, without Exchange or cables.”
He added: “The service offers a wide range of features, including wireless back up of data and content for BlackBerry devices on the cloud. It allows BlackBerry users to stay in sync with the apps and cloud-based services they use every day, such as Outlook, Facebook, Flickr and Picasa." "The ability to wirelessly sync contacts, calendars and pictures between BlackBerry devices, Outlook and the cloud, without Exchange and BES, has truly been a missing link," said J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., Principal Analyst at MobileTrax. "The Funambol mobile cloud service will be highly beneficial for BlackBerry users."
The Funambol BlackBerry service provides numerous benefits, including automated cloud backup of PIM data and pictures, Outlook PIM sync with BlackBerry devices (without Exchange), and an easy way to move contacts and calendars from other phones and systems onto a new BlackBerry (called "onboarding" in the industry). For example, the service lets users of other mobile devices, such as iPhone, Android and Symbian, easily migrate contacts and other data to BlackBerrys (as well as with other devices). The service also includes a ‘time machine’-like (data backup) feature that allows users to recover mistakenly deleted data.
About Funambol
Funambol is the open source mobile cloud company for billions of mobile phones and connected devices. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed by top mobile operators, device manufacturers, internet companies, service providers and ISVs. For more information, visit http://www.funambol.com.
Reader comments
Funambol answers the call for 'MobileMe-like' service for BlackBerry
Rubbish..
You can call it mobileme-like if it is offered by rim itself and not by some 3rd company where you have no garanty what they will do with your data and money..
You're calling it rubbish because it's not offered by RIM? Shouldn't you be just happy it's offered? Don't just dismiss something because you're a retard!
I've been using this service for over a year and it's been working flawless!
Given that similar services like Memotoo and (the now defunct) Scheduleworld use(d) the Funambol's app as a sync solution, I guess it was only a matter of time before they went for something like this themselves.
Memotoo's great but not perfect. It will be interesting to see what Funambol have to offer.
1st of all the link is wrong :P
Secondly, although they've just made it into Appworld, the client has been available for years!
And finally, you don't need a funambol account. They've only recently changed the look of the app to kind of make you believe that, but you can connect to any SyncML compatible server.
We've been using that setup for years at my company.
This new version is kind of annoying in the sense that it's much more my.funambol oriented.
I wish Google Sync wasn't so crappy for BB's. I'm reluctant to sync my data on too many 3rd party companies that may or may not be around forever but will always have my data on their servers.
We've always been trying to to provide the community with an open sync solution, we are an open source company and we have principles and a vision that is strongly against abusing the data we store for our users.
If you prefer not to use the my.funambol.com server, you are welcome to download the open source community edition of our server from www.forge.funambol.org/download/ and run it on your own machine, or use our clients against other SyncML servers as well (but some features will be unavailable such as the mobile signup or the picture sync).
You're also welcome to contribute to our product with feedbacks and patches, again: we're open source and we have nothing to hide :)
If you still have doubts, feel free to post here any question, or contact me at mapelli at funambol dot com, on twitter ( @mapelli ) or write to our open discuss list at bit.ly/fun-open-discuss.
Hope I clarified a bit :)
cheers
Francesco Mapelli, Funambol
One feat I'm definitely missing is the ability to choose which calendar I want to sync...but maybe it's a limitation put there by RIM?
Please fix the link in this story! It takes you to TD Bank app.
Been using it for about a year now and it works flawless, including sync with OL2010 from the moment it came out as public beta.
Use the client with Memotoo, but that wasn't such a succes as Memotoo adds extra zipcodes somehow.
I'm now syncing, my BB, my netbook,laptop and pc. So what ever computer I use at home OL is always in sync with my BB.
And it's very handy after a device software upgrade. I never have to worry about a backup. Just reset from server to BB.
Hope that they have a solution soon, so I can run my own syncml on my hosted webspace.
But for now, Funambol is the way to go for BIS-BB users. That's my opinion.
I used it a year before, got a lot of duplicates... this new Version seems faster, better and so on! I will give it a shot!
Doesn't work on Macs?
Yes, it does.
There's a Funambol client for mac, but current version syncs only Contacts. You can download it from our my.funambol.com portal.
Francesco, funambol
I've used the Funambol service for quite some time now, probably for about a year and a half. I use it on a server I've set up at home, so I do not worry about my info going anywhere but there. It's really easy to use, though I've got some suggestions for small improvements. I use it to sync my calendar, contacts, tasks, and memos to my two BB's, my wife's BB, my Outlook on my box, and my wife's Outlook on her box. It works fantastic! Yes, I've had some minor gripes, but I am not sure it's all due to Funambol either. This past week, I just upgraded my server to the 9.00 version. I don't use the my.funambol.com portal, as it says you can only use it for 90 days for free, after that, you can't use it anymore, and you can't pay for it either. So.... what do you do? I figured it was easy enough to set up my own server, as my HTPC is always on anyway, why not use that? It just works.
We removed the 90-day limit from my.funambol.com, you can get a lifelong account!
Francesco, Funambol
Is this similar to Dropbox? I am new to this cloud concept?
No, it syncs your PIM data.
Dropbox will sync any files you have on your BB.