A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android.
Palm OS is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management. Later versions of the OS have been extended to support smartphones. Several other licensees have manufactured devices powered by Palm OS.
A Pocket PC is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 as a rebranding of the Palm-size PC category. Some of these devices also had integrated phone and data capabilities, which were called Pocket PC Phone Edition or simply "Smartphone".
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, and web browsing.
SOGo is an open source collaborative software (groupware) server with a focus on simplicity and scalability.
Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants.
Documents To Go is BlackBerry's cross-platform office suite for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Maemo, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Android, and iOS. Also, a larger-screen version would have been included with the Palm Foleo, but Palm, Inc. cancelled the device before its release. The desktop tool, which provides document synchronization between one's handheld device and one's computer, is available for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. On 8 September 2010, it was announced that DataViz had sold the program along with other business assets to Research In Motion for $50 million.
Intellisync Corporation was a provider of data synchronization software for mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). The company was acquired in 2006 by Nokia.
Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which new email is actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client. Email clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.
The Motorola Q is a Windows Mobile smartphone first announced in the Summer of 2005 as a thin device with similar styling to Motorola's immensely popular RAZR. Motorola in a partnership with Verizon Wireless released the Q on May 31, 2006. A version for Sprint was released early in January 2007 and one for Amp'd Mobile in April 2007.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server designates the middleware software package that is part of the BlackBerry wireless platform supplied by BlackBerry Limited. The software and service connects to messaging and collaboration software on enterprise networks and redirects emails and synchronizes contacts and calendaring information between servers, desktop workstations, and mobile devices. Some third-party connectors exist, including Scalix, Zarafa, Zimbra, and the Google Apps BES Connector, although these are not supported by BlackBerry Limited. As of June 2018, BlackBerry Enterprise Server has been renamed to BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Manager (UEM).
Windows Mobile Device Center is a synchronization software program developed by Microsoft, and the successor to ActiveSync. It is designed to synchronize various content including music, video, contacts, calendar events, web browser favorites, and other files between Windows Mobile devices and the Microsoft Windows operating system.
RemoSync is a mobile application that provides corporate email, calendar and contact synchronization for mobile phones capable of running BREW applications. Conceived as a low-cost alternative to BlackBerry or iPhone devices, RemoSync is currently available on the Verizon wireless network.
Exchange ActiveSync is a proprietary protocol designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. The protocol also provides mobile device management and policy controls. The protocol is based on XML. The mobile device communicates over HTTP or HTTPS.
GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is available for Windows,, and the server software, which is supported on Windows Server and Linux.
Google Sync was a file synchronization service from Google that provided over-the-air synchronization of Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar with PC and mobile device Mail, Calendar and Address Book applications. It used Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® to let service users synchronize their Google Apps mail, contacts, and calendars to their mobile devices, wherein the users can also set up or customize the alerts for incoming messages and upcoming meetings. Google Sync worked with PC, Mac, Linux, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian S60, iPhone, iPad, Windows Mobile, and other devices. Google Sync was announced in February 2009 and discontinued for non-business users in December 2012.
MailSite is a commercial mail server, calendar software, contact manager and collaborative software developed by Rockliffe Systems. MailSite was one of the first mail servers to run on Windows NT using Internet standards when version 1.2 was released in 1996. MailSite has been in continual development since 1996 with version 10 released in 2013. MailSite runs on a single Windows Server or a cluster of Windows Server computers. MailSite works natively with Microsoft Outlook versions 2007 to 2013 for mail, calendar and contacts without requiring any Outlook plug-ins. MailSite includes an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) server for synchronizing mail, calendar and contacts with mobile devices. MailSite also works with Internet Standards-based mail clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird.
CompanionLink is a contact and calendar synchronization software that syncs data across smartphone and tablet devices, computers, and web-based applications. The software is developed by Portland, OR-based CompanionLink Software, Inc. CompanionLink Software, Inc. also develops DejaOffice—contact management mobile app for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone—and a secure cloud-based sync service called DejaCloud.
