Microsoft plays catch up to MobileMe with My Phone
Microsoft's answer to portions of Apple's MobileMe service was expected to be called SkyBox, but the company is now rebranding the mobile data sync service as My Phone, according to pages posted to the company's Windows Mobile website.
The original SkyBox name was supposed to connect the service with a variety of other planned services the company is getting to roll out, including SkyLine (SkyBox for businesses), SkyMarket (Microsoft's answer to the iPhone App Store for Windows Mobile), and SkyDrive (an online disk service similar to Google's GDrive or Apple's iDisk service in MobileMe). Of those plans, SkyDrive is the only one that is already live (it is the rebranded version of what Microsoft once marketed as LiveDrive).
The rebranding of SkyBox to My Phone (as in "rhymes with iPhone"), as well as the blue globe graphic Microsoft is using for the service (below), certainly call to mind the iPhone and Apple's .Mac branding. Of course, the My Phone service will work exclusively with modern Windows Mobile 6 devices, just as MobileMe only works with the iPhone/iPod touch. That has many tech sites calling My Phone "Microsoft's MobileMe," though the new service isn't identical to MobileMe in features.
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