Microsoft My Phone, Aka SkyBox Online Backup, Launches

It looks as though Microsoft have prematurely launched their mobile backup service, codenamed SkyBox, an announcement of which is expected at Mobile World Congress later this month.  Now named My Phone, though found at getskybox.com, the beta service promises 200MB of storage for contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, photos, videos, text messages, music and documents, via an on-phone sync app.

At launch, My Phone will be free - "at this time", though obviously your carrier may charge you for data – and available for Windows Mobile 6+ smartphones only.  Information is synchronized once a day, between 11pm and 5am, though you can also trigger a manual upload.

As well as creating a backup of your data, you can also access it through a web interface through which you can add, edit, and delete contacts and calendar appointments.  There's also the facility to share photos from your phone via email.  Exchange users will be able to install and register for My Phone, but only their photos, videos, texts, music and documents will be synchronized, with the Exchange server still used for contacts, calendar appointments and tasks.

Unfortunately there's no way to sign up to the My Phone service and try it out – the registration pages are missing – but this does seem to confirm that the system will be launching imminently.

[via Engadget Mobile]