Windows Mobile users may not have to be secretly jealous of the iPhone's slick internet integration for much longer, as Microsoft is forecasted to reveal some new mobile services of its own as part of the Mobile World Congress taking place next month.

SkyBox is the tentative name for Microsoft's new syncing service, one that updates contacts and information stored on your smartphone with data you store online with Microsoft. It's already being compared to Apple's MobileMe service for iPhones and personal computers. How useful this service would be for you is really dependent on how many devices you need to keep in sync. Sending contacts back and forth between your phone and PC is a breeze, but when you start having to coordinate multiple gadgets, a service like SkyBox looks very tempting.

SkyLine should be the same basic thing as SkyBox, but focused on corporate environments. This one should integrate with Microsoft Exchange and allow companies to keep a master contact list of employees, pushed out to synced devices.

While you should be able to access SkyBox and SkyLine from all sorts of hardware, including your home PC, SkyMarket will be exclusive to Windows Mobile devices. Just like its name implies, SkyMarket is Microsoft's answer to Apple's App Store. Sure, there are tons of programs already out there for Windows Mobile, but there's yet to be a sleek, unified interface for searching through them all and coordinating online purchases and downloads. If Microsoft pulls it off right, it could be a real shot-in-the-arm for the platform, which has always been functional, but lacks some of the zazz of other smartphones. The MWC starts on February 16th, so watch for more news then.

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