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ENTERPRISE CONNECTIVITY PRODUCT REVIEW
Synchronizing to Notes with Pylon Conduit
By Richard Echeandia
PalmPilot connectivity has moved into the corporate world with a vengeance. At first glance, the PalmPilot device and Lotus Notes seem as different as night and day. But the PalmPilot's HotSync and Notes replication almost seem designed for each other. A small aftermarket has popped up, developing products to exploit interoperability between Notes and the PalmPilot. Lotus has it's own EasySync product (they're one of our sponsors this month.) In this article Richard Echeandia looks at another solution: The Pylon Conduit. --David Gewirtz
One of the most powerful features of the PalmPilot is its easy, one step integration with your PC. This HotSync feature allows you to use your main PC for large scale data entry or data manipulation and then transfer and maintain that data on the Pilot. Synchronization is accomplished through the use of an open, documented interface called a "conduit". A quick analysis shows that almost all of the available conduits for the PalmPilot are falling into three categories:
- The conduits available from 3Com. You get these, of course, when you purchase your PalmPilot.
- Multi-purpose conduits. A market leader here is IntelliSync. These products are a good choice if you need to synchronize with more than one data source.
- A highly capable single purpose conduit. 3rd party developers have filled the void here by offering more deeply functional conduits than are available from either of the first two sources.
It is into this third category that the $85 Pylon Conduit from Globalware Consulting, Inc. falls. While extremely capable and flexible, the product is not without problems. I'll try to fill you in on both sides of this product in my review.
I can still remember the first day that I got my PalmPilot. Having paid full retail price back then $399 I was certain that this would be the end to my disorganized ways. After tearing off the shrink-wrap, I read the list of PIMs that my hoped for organizational savior was on speaking terms with: Schedule+, MS-Mail, cc:Mail, Exchange, Outlook and others. Noticeable by its absence was my company-wide calendaring and scheduling solution: Lotus Notes. Heavy sigh. I hadn't even replaced the batteries yet and I already felt buyer's remorse. So like any good computing citizen I knew what I had to do - SPEND EVEN MORE MONEY to get what I wanted. A couple of Yahoos later and I had come to http://www.gc.com - the home of the Pylon conduit from Globalware Consulting, Inc.
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