There’s a little line in this “known issues” page about the Microsoft Office 2010 beta that should strike a bit of a nerve for anyone who syncs their Windows Phones with Outlook. Here it is:

The WMDC will not be upgraded to work on 64-bit Windows when 64-bit Outlook 2010 is installed.

Now, to be fair, that is the Office 2010 Beta known issues page, so there is a chance that maybe once Outlook 2010 is actually released there will be an upgrade to WMDC that will let us sync again. We can hope that this will be the case.

Meanwhile, there is a thread on the Windows Phone Forums discussing the problem. If you want to implement a very involved work-around, on Technet, there is mention of installing a 32bit Outlook in VMware that uses the same PST file as your 64bit Outlook in order to get WMDC syncing back.

Could Microsoft be stupid enough to discontinue supporting syncing between Windows Phones and Outlook 2010 on 64bit systems? We’ve seen many features removed from ActiveSync over the years… WiFi syncing, Inbox Transfer, Full Device Backup/Restore, Selective syncing options, etc. Will 2010 finally begin the death of desktop syncing and sever our USB link between “Three Screens and the Cloud”?

I certainly hope not! There are no signs of any cloud-based services being able to pick up the slack. Outlook doesn’t sync with the MyPhone service. Windows Phones don’t sync with the Windows Live Calendar. Hopefully some things will change in those areas and we’ll have MORE choices for syncing data rather than less.

Other respondants in the forums listed above are confident that the scary line about Windows Mobile Device Center not being upgraded to work with 64bit Outlook 2010 is just for the beta version and that there will be an upgrade that makes everything okay.

What do you think? Would you miss desktop syncing if it was gone?