Google announced on December 14 that it will stop support for Microsoft‘s Exchange ActiveSync protocol for upcoming devices starting January 30th, 2013. Windows Mobile users that use Google Apps business accounts will not be affected by the move. Furthermore, current users that are syncing mail, calendar, and contacts should not have any issues. Any new devices that are being released with Exchange ActiveSync protocol with Gmail are the one that will not work. Observers believe that the move by Google is a bug hit to Windows Phone and is a part of a recent battle between the two firms for market share in specific markets.
Gmail users do not face the same problem with the iOS platform from Apple because Google uses IMAP support. There is also a dedicated Gmail app for calendar that uses CalDAV and for contacts there is CardDAV. Windows Phone has no support CalDAV and CardDAV even though Google and Apple have native support for the internet standards.
People with Windows Phone have two choices when they try to setup their Gmail account on their phone. They can pick an email-only option which will use IMAP to connect with Google’s email service and should sync every fifteen minutes at best. Users who go with the other option of getting calendar and contacts along with mail will automatically be setup with an Exchange ActiveSync that offers push email, calendars, and contacts unlike the first option. Since Google is stopping support for this functionality beginning January 30th for new devices the service will stop working. That means Microsoft has about a month to figure out what to do about the issue.
Google has stated that they have “no plans to build out Windows apps” which means a Gmail App is out of the question. Windows 8 and Windows Phone will get only a search app and Google Apps product management director Clay Bavor states that, “We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8.”
Microsoft will need to provide CalDAV and CardDAV support to give its Windows Mobile users a chance to use Gmail completely or they can just remove support for the calendar and contacts from Gmail. That would mean users who depend on Google services will not find Windows based phones attractive any more.
Microsoft and Google have been raising the stakes lately in their war to dominate search, browsers, mobile, productivity, and PC’s. Classic fights include Gmail vs Hotmail, IE vs Chrome and Android vs Windows Mobile. Microsoft has launched campaigns against Google’s products recently including the “Scroogled” campaign and “Bing it on” to challenge Google.
In the end the loser is the consumer who cannot use services as they like and will be forced to decide if their choice of phone or email is more important.
Source: The Verge
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