Microsoft Plus! Sync & Go Now Sunk & Gone

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/faq.asp?section=PLUS' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pl...sp?section=PLUS</a><br /><br /></div><i>"We apologize, but Microsoft no longer offers new downloadable content for the Plus! Sync and Go service. You can still use the Sync &amp; Go feature to synchronize content from your Windows Media Player library to your device, but we're no longer offering new Internet content. We apologize for any inconvenience. We encourage you to check out MSN Video Downloads, a similar service for Windows Mobile Based devices."</i><br /><br />The Plus! Sync &amp; Go software was a really interesting application, and in fact it pre-dates the birth of podcasting. Unfortunately, it was a great idea held back by poor marketing decisions and a proprietary attitude. The only way you could get the client software was to buy the Plus! pack, which didn't have a lot to offer beyond Photo Story. And even then, Microsoft never opened up the gates to allow third party content to get pushed down onto the devices. If this was done right from the beginning, Microsoft would have had a good two year jump on every other podcasting/enclosure-pulling software solution out there. Alas, poor Sync &amp; Go, we hardly knew ye...

[k_kirk]

I bought a copy of the Plus! Sync &amp; Go software way back when to ease the burden of putting music files onto my PPC with a reduced bitrate. I understand this capability is now free with WMP10 on desktop &amp; PPC. I feel a little cheated... Oh well, life goes on.

[dhpss]

Totally agreed with Jason, S&amp;G would have been a wonderful media content delivery tool with 2 years in advance over iTune; Juice (formerly known as iPodder)....

I always love the user interface of S&amp;G (which is rare from MS). Simple, intuitive...Unlike WMP10, very complicated, restrictive..

MS still has time to brush it up, open up to 3rd party media contents..S&amp;G is pretty much ready to go..again.

Will SPOT watch be next to go?

R.I.P Sync &amp; Go
2003-2005

[alabij]

Ever since I bought Sync &amp; Go about two years ago, I thought it was genuis. I am dissapointed that MS never pushed it. Before podcasting or videocasting became main stream S&amp;G already did it.

I really don't understand why Microsoft never marketed it properly. They could have beaten Apple to the line.

I think it was really someone's pet project at Microsoft. It had no real corporate backing. Probably the guy moved to Google and Ms decided to dump the project. Its the only logical explanation, there really isn't a reasonable excuse for such failue

[Gerard]

Would it be far off to say that Casio had this general notion - content delivery for mobile devices - beat more than a year before Microsoft with MyCasio.com? It's defunct now, and never really got far, but Casio seemed to me to have been way ahead of the curve in terms of understanding the directions mobile devices would take.

The launch, as I saw it, was the Casio JK-710DC CF camera and the suite of Casio video software for Palm-size PC, then PPC and PC. 30fps video with decent sound, and compression levels 5 years ago which still prove competitive with the latest codecs. Slideshows controllable via an intuitive handheld device interface. Programs and other content delivered to users via a single simple online interface. Seems to me Casio was ahead of its time, and bowed out too early.