TransMedia's has added an important new functionality to its Glide Effortless service, Glide Sync. Before this update, Glide enabled folks to manage and share video, music, documents, photos, contacts, bookmarks, calendars and e-mail files, but without synchronization. So if you altered a file in one context, it wasn't automatically reflected in another.

Now Glide automatically synchronizes content on multiple computers (PC or Mac), in a user's online Glide account, and accesses the files and data from multiple mobile devices—including Windows Mobile 5.0 PDAs and smartphones, Motorola RAZRs and Symbian-based, UIQ Sony Ericsson handsets—through the company's Glide Mobile software. Transmedia said it would eventually support other platforms, including the Nokia S60 interface and Palm OS (Treo).

"Glide Sync solves the problem of too many devices and separate and incompatible data management systems that people are forced to contend with on a daily basis," according Donald Leka, TransMedia's Chairman & CEO. "For the first time, it is possible to access everything, at anytime and from anywhere on all of your devices."

Glide works because all content streams through TransMedia servers on the way from one device to the other. Transcoding engines make it possible to view media even if the mobile device or PC you are viewing the files on does not support the original file format.

Originals are stored in Glide along with transcoded versions. TransMedia says this provides peace of mind for the end user, as they know their data is safe no matter where it was first created or stored.

Leka said to PDAStreet, "With the launch of Glide Sync today, Glide Effortless automatically connects your local PC desktop, online Glide desktop and mobile desktop by synchronizing and backing up all of your music, videos, documents, photos, bookmarks, contacts and calendars in multiple locations and accessible from multiple devices."

Glide Sync is initially compatible with Microsoft Outlook contacts and calendar events, Windows Address Book as well as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox bookmarks. TransMedia said Mac OS X support will be available shortly.

TransMedia also updated Glide Mobile, its wireless client, today. With Glide Mobile, you can name, caption, tag and categorize documents and files, and make their status private or public. There's also a child account admin feature.

There are now enhancements that let you create, import, view, delete and export more PIM data than before, as well as the addition of picture and and video capture uploading to Glide Effortless from mobile devices.

A couple of months back Transmedia introduced Glide Calendar and Glide Write (a Microsoft Word compatible word processor), hosted applications compatible with the Glide Effortless service.