It’s somewhat amusing to see Microsoft take a pop at Google – it’s a bit like seeing kids going at it then saying “Miss, Miss, they started it Miss!“. This recent incident was regarding electronic mail sync services.

Microsoft Office team recently published an article, “Really want to do some winter cleaning?”, recommending users switch to Outlook.com, following Google’s recent “” blog post.

In the Google article the company announced the decision to stop new devices signing up for Google Sync – although existing devices should continue to work (for the time being at least). Google said:

Starting January 30, 2013, consumers won’t be able to set up new devices using Google Sync; however, existing Google Sync connections will continue to function.

Google Sync is a mechanism for providing access to Google mail features using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync technology. In addition, Google Calendar Sync was also recently discontinued together with plans to discontinue Google Sync for Nokia S60 (on January 30th, 2013) and SyncML. On the face of it – it certainly looks like Google is pulling back the interconnection opportunities to non-Google mobile devices. Google did say that users of its paid service would not be affected.

Three days on from the Google announcement and the Outlook Blog team post an article saying;

We were very surprised to see Gmail announce last week that they’ll soon end support for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), unless of course you’re willing to pay Google for your email.

The article went on to say that users “might have to degrade their mobile email experience” by staying with Google and it goes on to recommend people jump ship to Outlook.com, as they say “if you want a better email, especially on your phone or tablet”.

This may be a small spat but could point to the start of something bigger as competition in the mobile space really starts to hot up. Windows Phone users may struggle if they want to use Google Services, integrated with their phone, and S60 based users are likely to be affected too.

Reading between the lines this latest announcement from Google could be another indicator that the “free lunch” of its services may soon be over for us all.