While Apple -- and hence TiPb -- has no presence at Mobile World Congress, the might Smartphone Experts Network is there in full force to bring back all the Android, HP/Palm, and Windows Phone(/Nokia!) news that's fit to post. Here's where it's all going down:

• Android Central Mobile World Congress coverage
• Windows Phone Mobile World Congress coverage

And who knows, they may even be able to snag some stories for PreCentral.net, CrackBerry.com, and TiPb.com as well. Meanwhile you'll likely be able to catch most of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans Twitter, which typically includes @philnickinson losing every bit of luggage he owns -- twice -- while @backlon (Dieter) comes down with some heretofore undiscovered European flu and @malatesta77 (Dan) attends the Ballmernote in full motorcylce helmet (to protect against sweat and flying developers, no doubt).

If there's anything at MWC 2011 you want us (meaning them!) to keep an eye out for, let us know!

UPDATED: Daring Fireball nails it. Closed or open, the smartphone industry was stagnating before the iPhone...

ORIGINAL: Steve Ballmer is the gift that just keeps on grief'ing! Proven wrong about the iPhone already, both the Microsoft CEO and his counterpart at Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvu both decided to take fairly transparent jabs at Apple, who once again didn't even bother to attend the show. CNet (via MacRumors) has the gory details.

Said Kallasvu (taking a break from iCloning the iPhone App Store):

Apple's vertically integrated model, where its hardware and software are tightly controlled by the company, further fragmented the market. And he added that what is truly needed is more openness in developing applications.

Said Ballmer, (who's been getting his own fair share of grief this week over WinPho 6.5):

"I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software. Openness is central because it's the foundation of choice."

One disgruntled European expressed displeasure at all the iPhone talk, asking why it deserved attention when it had only a tiny sub-percentage of the market.

Responded AT&T Mobility chief Ralph de la Vega:

"Because the other 99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone."

It wasn't all hugs and kisses from AT&T, though, even with the iPhone providing life support to their bottom line. Jabbed de la Vega:

"The iPhone is a great success, but it would be even better if the applications were interoperable,"

Um, yeah, because then people might actually want to buy those other, less innovative, non-iPhone you have stockpiled in your warehouse?

What's that? iPhone news at MWC09? It's true. I just got back from a meeting with DocsToGo and they showed off an early version of their app. So far Word document editing is a go, Spreadsheet editing is definitely in the plan but not quite up and running yet. They're tossing in document viewing for both plus PDFs as well -- which means you can have all of your documents in one spot.

Read on to find out how it all works, where the iPhone kinks are (since Apple limits what developers can do easily), and how we're loving their implementation of (in-app) Cut and Paste!

Apple obviously won't let DataViz go in and mess with their mail client, so email attachments are going to be pretty rough (read: non-starter). However, and here's where things get mysterious, DataViz does plan on having a desktop client that will allow you to sync your documents over to the iPhone and back again and the DocsToGo app on the iPhone will be able to "get around the sandbox" of not being able to store files locally. How exactly will all this happen? DataViz will wink, but can't say yet.

I did get a pretty good look at the Word doc editing and I have to say it's pretty slick. There's a single editing bar at the bottom which you can swipe left and right to get at all the various options. Full support for inline images, formatting, outlining, and more is all here. Also here, Cut and Paste done in a very clever way. You can:

• Double tap a word to select it.
• Triple tap a paragraph to select it.
• In magnify view, you can hold down your finger with the cursor in the same spot until the magnifying glass "pulses," which will then let you select character by character.

Apple -- please make sure you let this app in and when you do, take a very close look at their text selection method, because we're liking it.

DataViz hopes to have the whole shootin' match (perhaps minus spreadsheet editing, depending on their dev timeline) sometime in Q2 2009.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Adobe took the wrapper off a real for-real version of their desktop Flash player designed (and hopefully optimized) for mobile devices like the iPhone. Well, technically they took the wrappers off the wrappers, since Flash Mobile won't ship until the end of 2009 on its current schedule, and it won't support the iPhone even then, only Windows Phone 6.5 (are we allowed to call it WinPho now?), Google Android, Palm Pre, and Nokia. Even these implementations are likely to only ship in 2010.

And the iPhone version? According to Anup Murarka, director of partner development and technology (via Macworld):

“We’ve made a lot of progress, but there is still a lot of engineering work to be done. [...] We’re working with Apple on what we have. We’re committed to make the Flash plug-in work on the iPhone.”

Analysts aren't so sure, citing lack of low-level system access on the iPhone (and BlackBerry) as limitations, as well as Apple's preference for their own QuickTime technology.

So, if no news is good news, not much news must be... what exactly then?

Yep, they're not just iClone'ing phones anymore. The App Store is on everyone's must rip list, and what else? It rhymes with iPhone and works a lot like MobileMe...

According to WMExperts, it's Microsoft's new My Phone (née SkyBox).

Okay, so the name re-un-de-breaks Microsoft's usually mind-boggling branding -- we're guessing it harkens back to My Computer and My Documents of yore -- and including not only PIM data but text messages, photos, videos, and device backup, is something we'd really like to see in the next version of MobileMe.

Our own editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, will be live and on location in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, so we expect he'll send back all the details, but with everyone at Microsoft already using Exchange (heck, even Apple licenses it!) we have to wonder where My Phone fits in, what if any similar features ActiveSync might get as a result, and why it is exactly Microsoft insists on producing so many products with more overlap than a hair weave?