It appears we are going backwards....
Smart Phone manufacturers have drunk the wireless provider Kool-Aid. The only option for any of these new phones is to sync with an online data store of some sort through the wireless connection.
It used to be simple to synchronize your desktop client calendar and contacts with your smartphone. Since the phone needs to be recharged regularly, the synchronization generally came automatically as the USB to desktop connection served both roles.
However, we no longer get to synch with an Outlook client, we can only synch with an exchange server that IT has granted permissions for, or an online gmail or Microsoft account. It may be understandable that Android does not sync with Outlook (unless the Outlook calendar is uploaded to gmail) but I am thoroughly flummoxed that Microsoft no longer supports synchronizing Outlook calendar and contacts through a simple USB connection with Win7 phones.
Smartphone OS manufacturers should realize there is a large market that still uses desktop clients, or do not have access to a corporate mail system except through a local client. Any one of them that jumps to support these environments will have customers driven to their door.
