Microsoft has released a beta of Phone Data Manager, a utility designed to backup select data on your Windows Mobile phone (or other SyncML/OBEX standard compliant handset) so you can restore it with ease.  The beta works both with Windows Live Contacts and a Windows PC to backup contacts, music, video and photos.

While Phone Data Manager isn’t exactly an all-in-one backup solution, it does offer some unique benefits.  Contacts are stored in the Cloud on Windows Live, while media files are stored in a folder on your Windows XP or Vista PC.  Aside from backing up contacts, Phone Data Manager is also a contacts sync solution to mirror contacts between Windows Mobile and Windows Live Contacts. 

This type of synchronization is the future of mobile and we hope to see more of it.  Unfortunately, this first beta only supports backup/sync via Bluetooth or USB cable, and Windows Mobile devices must use USB, at least for now.