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Daring Fireball on iPhone Exchange support (or lack thereof)
John Gruber of Daring Fireball had an interesting take on some comments made by the Wall Street Journal about how the iPhone needs to better support corporate email.
While I found Johns take interesting and mostly agreeable (as usual), I did want to point out that the problem isn’t merely email. It’s collaboration. Exchange isn’t just an email platform. It handles tasks, notes, appointments, meeting scheduling, public folders and a myriad of other things, not to mention the centralized control it gives IT departments.
My point, as IT manager for an $80m company and a Mac guy, was that the problem isn’t simply email. it’s collaboration. Exchange does SO much more than handle email…it does tasks, appointments, notes and so on, not to mention centralized management and integration with Active Directory (which is crucial for desktop management in an organization).
Let’s face it: at the price level the iPhone is at, this is not going to be a toy that people buy on a whim; they need serious tools for managing their lives and work, and without this support, they aren’t getting it.
I’m no Microsoft apologist by any means, but Exchange is far and away the best solution for serious use. Yes, there are other solutions out there, but none that are as tightly integrated and low maintenance. Keep in mind that this comes from a unix guy who moved to the Mac, but has to deal with a heterogeneous OS environment on a daily basis at work.
Anyway, the point is that if the iPhone is to be used in a corporate setting (as a Blackberry or WM device would be), it needs to be able to synchronize not only email, but tasks, calendars and the vast number of data stored on a centralized server.
For years I’ve been waiting for a converged device to come from Apple, and now I can honestly say that one of the reasons I won’t be lining up on launch day is the lack of Exchange support (along with paltry storage and no GPS support - c’mon Apple! I have a 16gb keychain drive and even the most basic cell phone has GPS capability!).
As I mentioned to John in an email, the problem will undoubtedly be solved by some enterprising 3rd party like Mark/Space or VersaMail but frankly it is disappointing that Apple didn’t take the time to go ahead and license the appropriate push technology from Microsoft.
Let’s hope that the solution comes quickly, lest the sheen of the past decade wears off of our fearless leader and the iPhone bombs.
Also, if you’re interested, we have an article from a couple months ago that has some ideas for how Apple can penetrate the corporate market even further. Take a look!
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