Sync options - bad support

Question

I have a Pearl 8130.   As a stand alone device it works good.  My complaint is trying to sync it with anything.  RIM's support is garbage if you're using anything but Outlook.
I own a Mac and fought long and hard to work out some of the many kinks with PocketMac.   This software is lacking tons of features and some basic functionality.   I finally reduced my expectations and after a lot of grief am able to sync to Apple Mail and iCal with basic functionality.
Now I know someone who just got a Vista machine and I was expecting the Windows Calendar to be supported.  As far as I could tell from this forum and documentation it is not.   Am I the only one who thinks it's obvious that Windows Contacts and Windows Calendar be supported?   Vista's been out a long time now so development time is no excuse.
My first preference was to use Thunderbird and either Sunbird or Lightning but no big surprise that RIM doesn't support that either.  
Well, I'm not going to yell to the world how dumb RIM is being, nor complain about their hidden costs of requiring Outlook on Windows and/or having to put up with pathetic software on OSX.  However once my contract ends I will definiately shop around and assess alternatives to another Blackberry.  If RIM supported Windows Calendar and/or Thunderbird and Sunbird/Lightning, and actually took ownership of PocketMac and put a little effort into it they would have a very nice solution.

Answer 1

Apple iPhone technologies are all about proprietary format (open source or closed source) and all about Apple iTunes
RIM technologies are all about proprietary format (closed source) and all about Windows.
You as a Mac user decided to buy a product mainly designed for the Windows world.
About the Vista thing.. well, I don't have all the details but Windows Mail and Windows Calendar are all but descending compatible. If Microsoft did not develop the way they did, breaking compatibility, it could have worked. It's a pity it is not compatible with the Desktop Manager, but on the other hand I think the main objective is reached for RIM : having a Desktop Manager that works for all devices, on windows 2000 and windows XP and Windows Vista.
It's more important than compatibility with Windows Mail or MacOSX.
Having said that, it's clear that everything works better with Outlook 2003/2007 or Lotus Notes.
For your request, you can do the TBird synchronization thanks to IMAP support of Google Mail, and calendar support of Google Calendar & contacts support of Google Mail.
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