13. Is The IPhone Ready For Business?

A third email connectivity option offered by the iPhone is "Exchange", meaning "Exchange Server". However, that option actually uses the IMAP protocol. I set up access to my email account on my Exchange server. It was effortless after I entered the usual data for an IMAP connect.

While Secure Sockets Layer and Windows networking security are available for IMAP, several business level requirements are unmet with this release of iPhone email. Also, the iPhone in its present configuration cannot wirelessly synch contacts, calendar or other personal information management content. This can only be done by connecting the phone to a computer using a cable. Also, push email service is not available with the Exchange Server option.

More than anything else, businesses want the ability to control individual smartphone devices in a variety of ways, including remotely updating them with new corporate or subgroup policies and even disabling a device that may be lost or stolen. Business IT departments also want to be sure that it is very difficult to extract data from a smartphone that gets loose and may not be fully disabled.

Right now there are two main email systems that support what businesses are looking for: RIM's Blackberry Enterprise Server for Exchange Server and Lotus Domino and Microsoft's Wireless ActiveSync which is part of Exchange Server. Blackberry Enterprise Server is still the preferred approach.

I have been writing books about Exchange Server since the first version (v.4) came out in 1995. My latest, written with Jim McBee is "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2007" from Wiley and Sons (Sybex division, 2007). I've also had some pretty hairy experiences with smartphones (including what we used to refer to as PDAs) that needed to be protected or from which data needed to be extracted. Historically, it's been pretty easy to get data from Microsoft-based smartphones, though things tighten up pretty well with Exchange 2007, the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system and Windows Mobile Outlook. I can get data out of Blackberries, but it's in such disarray that it's most difficult to read and decipher.

In terms of security, the iPhone's email isn't all that difficult to access if a device is lost, though deactivation of a lost or stolen iPhone could make that much more difficult. I haven't had time to explore all ramifications in this area.

So, what is Apple doing about all this? Steve Jobs seems to be taking the ActiveSync road for Exchange Server. Though most Apple aficionados would probably drop to the ground in a faint at hearing that Apple is thinking about getting into bed with Microsoft, the choice is a good one.

While RIMs Blackberry Enterprise Server depends on services licensed or directly provided by RIM itself for synchronization, ActiveSync can work with a direct Internet connection between an Exchange server and a smartphone; a relatively simple solution. And, like Blackberry Enterprise Server, Exchange's ActiveSync supports wireless synchronization of such personal information management data as contacts and calendars.