Wow, are you actually considering running a mail server at your home in order to remotely sync and receive push email? In my experience, that's normally an enterprise-only option, because with Windows Mobile, you'd need Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or Exchange Server 2007. There are hosted Exchange options available from ISPs and other service providers, and MS itself is starting to offer hosted services, too.

However, why not just use Windows Live Hotmail? You can sync mail and contacts to Outlook Mobile on your device, and to your desktop PC. And it's free.

Good luck!

Exchange is nice, but as noted above, Windows Live Hotmail is a great way to go for free, and without adding any third-party stuff. Just create a free Hotmail account, and forward all your other accounts to it. Then, activate Live Hotmail on your WM phone (or download from MS if you don't have it already: http://www.gowindowslive.com/Mobile/Landin...e/Default.aspx), and select "As new messages arrive" for the delivery schedule under account options. That should give you a very good direct push experience. I believe you can even sync contacts, just like with Exchange.

Rare to see such universal agreement on something!
But really - it does seem quite a shame that Orange (and probably other MOs in the not too distant future) are trying to monetize a great little app that's been working beautifully for a while - for free. I don't think there's an MO out there who could possibly have missed the outrage when there was an accidental release of a "pay for service" message on LM a few months ago. Oh well...

I've been using IE Mobile in WM 6.1 for a few weeks now, and it's a vast improvement over the version of IE in WM 6. Not sure why, but layout, javascript, graphics, and navigation are all way better. Obviously, this isn't the same as the one that's coming later this year, but to me it's a good sign.