Sharpcast Opens to the Public

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1. Aner Ravon
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 8:39 pm

   Does it do image transcoding? what happens if the mobile device and PC files are at different format? without that it’s kind of problematic.

2. JD
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 9:12 pm

   I’m looking forward to syncing contacts. The only places I’ve found to do it for free is sync123.com and yahoo. Both get the job done but lack serious management features. Why aren’t there more services for this? I go through several phones a year and have a lot of contacts so I sync often. I can’t be the only one with a need for this and if anyone else knows of any other syncing services please let me know.

3. Mike Cannon-Brookes
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 9:29 pm

   Can anyone explain to me why this is new?

   Does noone remember a little, and I use the term loosely, company called FusionOne in the dotcom era that went spectacularly bust after mowing through ~$125million (from memory) in venture capital. The goal was simply to sync between an online interface, mobile phones, laptops, desktops etc. Their service worked (I used to use it) but they simply couldn’t get enough people to pay for it I think.

   As the other poster said, make it free and you go bust. Restrict it in silly ways (I think fusionone could sink up to 100 contacts free, and not calendars or something) and noone will use it.

   m

4. Ted
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

   So is this similiar to foldershare? I use foldershare to sync the data on multiple computers except for email, contacts and calendar. Email, contacts and calendar are all web based so there is no need to sync.

5. Gibu Thomas
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 10:35 pm

   Aner - Sharpcast does do image transcoding — the key is you shouldn’t have to worry about any of that stuff. You do what you want to do, wherever you want to do it, and we glue it all together, so you are not managing multiple islands of data on all your devices and the web. If the user has to think about how to manage this mess, we would have failed. We are taking baby steps toward that world. If you try the app, you’ll understand what I am talking about. The mobile app will take a few more weeks before it is out.

   JD - Contact sync is one of the many sync problems that consumers are faced with that there is no good answer for. People spend millions of dollars to fix these problems for corporations with large Exchange servers and Blackberry enterprise servers. Everyone I talked to during the fundraising process reasoned that the consumer sync solutions were all ‘good enough’ or the problem wasn’t big enough. You could have reasoned the same thing about a VCR until Tivo came along, which is why we are here today. Hopefully we can make you happy soon.

   Mike - Absolutely, we remember Fusionone. Few things to consider: i. their timing might not have been perfect — there are a lot more gadget jugglers today to make the problem more acute ii. Sync is most powerful when you don’t know it exists. With Fusionone, you had to think about sync — this is why we built our own real-time push sync engine, so you don’t even have to push a button to pick up where you left off wherever, online or offline iii. your bah humbug reaction can be applicable to any product when you read a short review. Give the product a fair shot and send me feedback, I promise we will listen.

   Ted — Sharpcast is a many-many sync engine that involves the web, mobile and multiple desktops, and integrates into existing applications. It is a much more powerful experience than Foldershare intended to make it irrelevant whether you are online or offline to do the things you want to do. Try it, you will understand.

   Thanks for everyone’s comments.

6. Mike
   

   May 30th, 2006 at 11:10 pm

   Mike Cannon-Brookes, what do you mean “make it free, and you will go bust” ?? Do you mean, make it free and you will fail? The top sites right now all got their buy giving out stuff for free..

7. Aner Ravon
   

   May 31st, 2006 at 1:00 am

   I think it’s a cool app, but not one I can use! I dont have a Palm or Windows Mobile and it really annoys me!
   does SharpCast have a plan for midrange devices???
   get my full review at http://www.degardener.com/2006.....on-wheels/

8. Gibu Thomas
   

   May 31st, 2006 at 5:21 am

   Aner,

   Absolutely we are working on more mainstream mobile platforms. Please give us a bit of time to crawl before we can really walk So far, most of the work (3+ years) has gone into the underlying real-time sync platform, which is the important thing for the future. Win Mobile was the quickest way for us to get an end-to-end experience to market. That said, there are a lot more of you out there than Win Mobile users or smart phone users, so we absolutely are focused on a more powerful mobile story.

   This might not be as interesting to you, but the current solution is primarily intended to prove the power of desktop/web staying in sync. By the way, the album import will dramatically improve as well. For now, the easiest thing to do is drag and drop a folder of images into the album pane on the left (even if you are offline). They are automatically synced to the web. You can go to a browser then and make changes and they are automatically synced back to the desktop for those times when you are offline.

   Also the contacts in the photo app is a buddy list for you to share with. Today at the D conference, we will show you our vision of managing your PIM (think a Blackberry-experience for the rest of us on your current devices, with your current PIM apps).

   Anyway, you raise fair and interesting points in your review, all of which are stuff we are working on. The hardest part is to get the mainstream to understand the power of sync. We are doing it as fast as we can and we will get where you want us to be sooner rather than later, I promise.

   Please keep feedback, positive and negative, coming. It will help us get better.

   Gibu

9. Aner Ravon
   

   May 31st, 2006 at 5:44 am

   Gibu,

   Many thanks for taking the time to read my post. I also posted some of this email on Techcrunch.

   I truly understand the value and the hard work you have to put into the infrastructure alone and I definitely see the vision and potential. My personal and professional background has (unfortunately) made me very familiar with how complicated synching is, especially when mobile is involved.

   My criticism, if I can call it such, is with the unclear message / use case of your first public app. If it’s about Pc to Web synching that’s one thing. If it’s PC to mobile synching, then that’s another thing. I dig the overall picture, I really do, but as a user I can listen to one message at a time. If what I heard was cross device then I expect cross device and hence my disappointment.

   On a personal note, I wish you all the luck. I read your personal blog and you seem like a person whose values I totally identify with. I will definitely keep following.

10. Gibu Thomas
    

    June 2nd, 2006 at 11:19 am

    Aner, I think your comments are valid. The frank answer why there is a disconnect between the mobile-inclusive positioning and the reality of not having mobile for a few more weeks is because we are behind where we thought we would be. It seemed prudent for us to try and fix the mobile ASAP than iterate again on the message or have multiple competing messages.

    The mobile is an important part of our story and it is an area that we are focusing heavily on. But, it is a more complicated game as you know with the device/network limitations, fragmented operating systems and the role of the carrier. The good news is that our background building the Palm Blazer browser and working with carriers helps tremendously in overcoming these challenges. But, for another couple of months, our mobile story will center around Win Mobile 5.0.

    Thanks for your good wishes. It is kind sentiments like the one you express that keep us going, so I really appreciate it.