AOL introduced on Thursday a new sync application, AOL Sync, that will sync your AOL address book and calendar with Outlook and mobile phones. AOL has partnered with Funambol to deliver this bidirectional, over-the-air sync client. Funambol, for those who don’t know, is a popular open source synchronization solution that uses SyncML to push PIM data to mobile devices and desktop applications. Basically, it’s the poor man’s Exchange / BES. The AOL sync client supports Outlook, Outlook Express...

There has been a whole lot of buzz about Funambol since the WWDC keynote, mostly touting the open-source offering as a wonderful free alternative to MobileMe. MobileMe, in case you’ve just awoken from a coma, is Apple’s sync everything everywhere solution. Syncing with MobileMe is seamless, instant and always active. You know, kind of like Exchange. So is this free Funambol offering really going to be a viable alternative to Apple’s new suite? There is an expression that almost always holds...