CalConnect Holds Second Mobile Calendaring and Scheduling Interoperability Testing
Kerio Technologies Hosted Test Event in Czech Republic
November 24, 2008 - The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium held its second Mobile Calendaring Interoperability Test Event (C.I.T.E.) 08 at Kerio Technologies offices in the Czech Republic. Icewarp, Kerio, Oracle, Symbian, and Synthesis participated, indicating the growing role of European companies in CalConnect’s technical work in the mobile area.
Tests involved calendar interoperability among three clients and four servers. Specifically, C.I.T.E. participants tested calendar data synchronization between a mobile device and a server using OMA DS (aka SyncML) and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® protocols. The test cases were selected from CalConnect’s Mobile Calendar Interoperability Test Suite and run in combinations of client and server implementations from different vendors.
Dave Thewlis, CalConnect’s Executive Director, noted, “The testing went well and, as expected, uncovered a number of difficulties with interoperability, and some underlying problems below the calendar data level as well. All of the participants felt that it was very worthwhile and advanced the interoperability of their products. All participants indicated they wished to engage in future mobile interoperability test events if possible.”
Pat Egen, Patricia Egen Consulting, who designs and oversees the testing events, explained, “The biggest challenge is most mobile devices use an older version of the calendaring specification. A major objective of CalConnect is to help influence movement, by the device developers and the mobile operators, towards the newer, richer specification.
Following the Mobile Interoperability Test Event, CalConnect hosted an invitational Meet CalConnect event in Prague, Czech Republic, on Friday November 7, and repeated in London on November 10. Representatives of five members of CalConnect participated in the events involving potential members.
The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium (www.calconnect.org)
The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium (CalConnect) is a partnership among vendors, developers, and customers to advance calendaring and scheduling standards and implementations. The mission is to provide mechanisms to allow calendaring and scheduling methodologies to interoperate, and to promote broad understanding of these methodologies so that calendaring and scheduling tools and applications can enter the mainstream of computing.
The Consortium develops recommendations for improvement and extension of relevant standards, develops requirements and use cases for calendaring and scheduling specifications,
conducts interoperability testing for calendaring and scheduling implementations, and promotes calendaring and scheduling. Organizational members are Apple, Cabo Communications, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, Duke University, Eventful, Fresno State, Google, IBM, Kerio Technologies, MailSite, Microsoft, MIT, Mozilla Foundation, neutralSpace, New York University, Open Source Applications Foundation, Oracle, Patricia Egen Consulting, PeopleCube, , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Scalix, Sony Ericsson, Stanford University, Stockholm University, Sun Microsystems, SWAMI (Swedish Alliance for Middleware Infrastructure), Symbian, Synchronica, TimeBridge, University of California, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Yahoo!/Zimbra.