Apple iPhone gets Microsoft Exchange support!

Great news for business users. Still iPhone lacks a BIS-type system, where anyone can get push e-mail without having to be on a corporate server (and no, Yahoo “push” doesn’t count). Definitely a huge step in the right direction, though.

@Greg

How long do you think it will take Apple to transform .Mac into Exchange?

Yet no mention of tasks or notes….. Which for a lot of enterprise exchange users simply will not cut it w/o a full feature support. Same goes for entourage 2008, tasks and notes?????

Jeff

Ominx, I would hope that’s where they are going. That would be perfect. But who knows if/when? My assumption is if it was easy to do, BB wouldn’t be the only service that could do it…. I guess maybe the Sidekick is comparable?

Now all we need is pic msg, 3G, GPS and I will think about getting one.
But this is funny Apple is using Microsoft.

BlackBerry for life!

Who cares… iPhone sucks!

How ironic, Apple using Microsoft products…interesting.

What is there for you to rip on now, I mean this has just named Microsoft the superiority from apple themselves.

No matter how much Apple licenses from Microsoft I’ll keep my Tilt…until the iPhone runs WinMo 6 Pro…then I’ll get my SE Xperia X1…

I would imagine its going to be EAS, certainly will put the cat amongst the pidgeons in some companies, but there again even Exchange support still leaves the issue with carriers, my company doesn’t use O2 in the UK and I can’t see them changing from the current provider.

Sorry but the sidekick is not campairabe to a blackberry nothing is and even once microsoft starts emplamenting their software on dangers devices the sidekick will never be in the same league as the bb

I don’t know why I come here anymore, maybe its for the BB leaks but sweet god you people are all ignorant. From someone who caries a 8300 and iPhone I can say that this is a game changer. RIM has something to worry about. Let’s face it, BlackBerry rocks but honestly Apple’s first entry into the market is doing everything a BB can do BETTER! Also where is there a (TRUE)3G (not evdo), GPS, Camera Blackberry with wifi? It doesn’t exist yet either you morons.

Apple has beaten the e-mail phone at its own game. BB can’t even do HTML mail, USELESS!

@ Tyler Brock
no it can’t do push email the battery can be changed out and you can’t swap sd cards
also there is no office suite for the over glorified brick tru el jobso wants to take on RIM yes but you still have to hunt an peck with 1 finger for typing
and no GPS either

sorry I’ll stick with my 8800 thank you

theres no reason for bb fanboys to get upset…this will make no difference in the business world. BlackBerry is a mature platform with a lot more then just exchange support.

Tyler, lol, please tell me what the iPhone does better then a BlackBerry? You obviously either a) don’t use your 8300 much or b) don’t use it w/ BES.

shlammed – browsing and media right now but with this news they are going after the business users. They have the #2 spot in the market and want to add more so this makes sense. BB users are happy with their device, no problem then but those that want better browsing and media will be the ones that now will see that with push email, corp security, the iphone is a good alternative.
I agree BB is a mature product but so was Palm, if you sit still you get passed up.

@shlammed:

The iPhone is better at handling music and video much better than the blackberry. It also handles HTML email, and although you cannot edit them, word, PDF and especially excel spreadsheets are actually readable on the iPhone. have you ever really edited or been able to make heads or tails of a spreadsheet on a BB? The iPhone doesn’t require the expensive Blackberry data plan either. And speaking of Blackberry data, how many MAJOR outages has RIM suffered this year?

I will not go so far as to say the iPhone is a better enterprise solution than Blackberries because that’s simply not true. Until Apple adds some of the very important business features that the iPhone lacks, the Blackberry will remain the better choice. But for how long? Apple is the new kid on the block with the iPhone and we are already talking about enterprise email in just a few months. Not to mention a plethora of third party apps that should fill in any gaps quite nicely. Other than a preference in form factor, there won’t be a really compelling reason to choose RIM devices over the iPhone or even MS devices. Although multimedia is not high on the list of reasons to use a blackberry, they are becoming more and more in demand by even business users. I’d much rather travel with my iPhone and have movies and music for the plane than a blackberry. And face it, although the software library for Blackberries has grown, it’s still not as attractive of that for MS or even the Palm platform. And the best of the software for BB is usually VERY expensive.

I think it was smart to go with Microsoft in using ActiveSync. I mean, who wants to deal with the additional costs related in running a BES environment anymore. What with the additional servers, licenses questionable stability of RIMS severs lately, and the taxing requirements to your Exchange Server… why not go with Exchange?

The notion that by using AS on the iPhone is some admission to MS superiority over Apple is just silly. If Apple had chosen to reinvent the wheel and produce their OWN proprietary push mail client, the business world would be outraged. Most already have a large investment in Exchange so it would be a complete slap in the face to the very community Apple is trying accommodate with enterprise services on the iPhone. For them to go any other route would be counterproductive and would spark a huge cry from everyone in the tech community.

I can tell you as a CIO for the last 7 years in the finance industry, more and more companies are foregoing the BES and adopting the ActiveSync platform due to the reasons stated above. Blackberry may have been first, but that doesn’t mean they will remain the better choice. For most companies, it’s just another set of servers and another set of licenses to deal with and becoming less and less worth the effort over the alternatives.

So, I agree that RIM is currently your better choice for an enterprise solution at the moment. But the clock does seem to be ticking. If the iPhone can become serious competition to MS and RIM devices in just a year or so, what about in two or three years?

you must know a lot more then pretty much every analyst in the world who has already stated that this latest news from Apple poses no threat to RIM.

p.s. as a CIO (lol) I’m sure you must know all the benefits of using a BES and how many features wouldn’t be available without it. Not to mention the fact that RIM has proven security which again, as a CIO (lol) you should be thankful for.

@Shlammed:

Hey (lol) Chuckle Head. (lol) Do you like typing (lol). Or do you think if you add (lol) at the end of CIO, it makes me not one? Sorry if you are flipping burgers for a living (lol) but don’t mock me because I’m not. As a matter of fact, what was it that compelled you to take the statement that I made as a personal attack and choose to “mock” me? Is the web the only place you can do that without getting your butt kicked? I find that to be the case with most internet “instigators” such as yourself.

If you had actually had to intelligence to understand my post, I stated quiet clearly that the iPhone was currently no threat to (lol) RIM. That doesn’t mean that that won’t change in the future. As I CIO, I also appreciate the fact that Exchange AS also has proven security and that the RIM (lol) edge is loosing it’s sharpness compared to other services and devices.

No where did I say that RIM would not be in business or continue to be widely used by corporate America. I only stated that the compelling reasons to choose it over other more feature rich devices will dwindle as devices such as iPhone and MS close the gap.

shlammed proved he is just a kid with his posts. And he must not realize that with all that 1990′s security it can be hard to update and make the OS look and feel modern. If you want proof just look towards Palm. RIM is and will be the #1 for Security and huge corporate environments but Apple will continue to gain strength in the middle, the smaller companies to the mid-size corp. users that want the change.

And also he is showing the reaction that should make RIM move faster toward innovation, you say that they are no threat yet are extremely defensive about their standing.

@shlammed – Apple is no threat to RIM? You must be kidding. When a $100 billion company starts looking at your market you darned well better perceive a threat.

the phone which got hacked 1 1/2 months now gonna go corprate yet they cant keep the phone from being jailbroken, yeh i bet security exists on this. NOT

@ROLF

Comments like yours and the rest of the flamers are the reason that most people hate to even bother posting to these types of forums.

Hacking the SIM lock feature has nothing to do with the Enterprise Security offered by Exchange AS. On my last blackberry device, I was able to edit the devices OS to access “locked” themes only available for other carriers. I also flashed my HTC 8525 with several cooked ROMS that allowed many features like push mail before they were “officially” released. So hacking on OS is NOT the same as breaking into the secure email client.

My point, which again was lost on the obviously non-technical minds trolling here, is that Exchange AS, which the iPhone will use, uses high levels of security and encryption just as RIM does.

Really people! Why is it necessary to flame a device for announcing plans to improve it? When the iPhone first hit, everyone pissed and moaned because of the features that it lacked. Now that those features are being added, people feel compelled to start posting rants that it will never be as good as their blackberry, or sidekick, or Tilt, blah blah blah. What I don’t understand is why everyone who does not use an iPhone spends so much time putting it down? If the iPhone is so insignificant, why spend so much time flaming it?

It’s a big world out there people and there is room for a variety of devices to suit all needs and preferences. Why is is necessary to tear down those you choose not to carry?

Apple is working hard to improve an already really great device and I say kudos to them for that. I have a drawer full of old smart phones that the manufactures never bothered to produce updates for. Those that did usually made you wait endlessly and sometimes in vain for those updates.

I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t bitch because a device lacks features and then turn around and bitch when they start adding them.