[CorpITGuy]

I don't see any good threads on iPhone in the Enterprise, so I wanted to see if we can get a good one going here.

My wife bought me an iPhone for my birthday. Although it's annoying coming from ActiveSync on Windows Mobile, I can handle syncing with my PC for corporate contacts/calendar from Exchange (my Treo 750 did this over-the-air, along with push e-mail). My company DOES have IMAP enabled, but unfortunately there is no hole in the firewall for SMTP and I therefore had to start out using a different SMTP server. Of course, almost all mail servers these days do a reverse DNS lookup and see that the sender address is spoofed and reject my e-mail. So, I went to Synchronica's website and configured it on my device. This is ok. My main problems are: (a) no push e-mail and (b) the stupid tagline at the bottom: sent by Synchronica mobile gateway. This is unacceptable.. I don't want everyone in the world knowing that I'm not towing the company line. We have no set policies AGAINST the iPhone, but I don't want to be the cause of such a policy being written.

So, there you have it. Though multiple companies offer some Exchange integration for the iPhone (or have promised it) there are no solutions (that I can find) that actually do the job for me.

Has anyone else had better luck?

[-Q-]

Unfortunately, no.

The iPhone really seems to be designed for the early adopter consumer and is currently a really poor 'corporate citizen.' I've seen the same announcements, but until Apple opens the platform or designs Exchange integration into the product themselves, I don't see it welcomed by IT departments for some time.

Overall, my IT department has been geeking out over it but even their informal exams of it show it pretty difficult to incorporate into the email workflow. It was easy to add to the corporate wireless for surfing, but there's no way to connect it to our corporate email server for anything.

I guess we're just going to have to wait...

[Earth Mk. II]

Will the iPhone connect to your corporate VPN? The iPhone should support the same VPN protocols as OS X does: L2TP and PPTP.

That should allow you to use your company's SMTP server, at least.

[CorpITGuy]

My company uses IPsec.

It's a shame that Apple didn't include ActiveSync in the first iteration. I think they could have blown the lid off the Blackberry culture. I'd love to see that particular culture go down in flames and be replaced by something this forward leaning.

[analogika]

Apple's priorities are quite obviously - and understandable - set on getting the mainstream stuff right, first.

I don't actually believe they'll add too much stuff to accomodate the corporate market, a) because they don't really have to in order to rake in a huge amount of money, and b) because one of the secrets of Apple is that they're deathly afraid of cluttering their products with too many features.

We'll just have to wait and see where they draw the line.

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally Posted by analogika 

b) because one of the secrets of Apple is that they're deathly afraid of cluttering their products with too many features.

I'll give you the point that they don't like adding unnecessary complexity to a user interface (for varying values of "unnecessary" and "complexity"), but exchange server savvy push email/OTA calendar sync would hardly do that. More likely it's a time/licensing/hubris thing rather than a clutter thing.

[analogika]

Oh, I agree!

But you know as well as I that there's ALWAYS SOME THING that is absolutely "Essential" for business use that will make this thing "completely useless": Once it does push e-mail, OTA Calendar Sync, the next thing is mobile office compatibility, and then editing capabilities, and then...

The question is simply where Apple will draw the line, and where they can strike the balance on iPhone (the way they do on Macintosh) between operational simplicity and the optional availability of complexity when demanded - all within the performance constraints of a 700 MHz ARM-based system.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by Earth Mk. II 

More likely it's a time/licensing/hubris thing rather than a clutter thing.

I highly doubt it has anything at all to do with hubris. If Apple thought they could have integrated the Enterprise solutions well enough they would have. There's lots and lots of money to be made there, and you can be sure that the iPhone will have Enterprise-like functionality in the near future.

[CorpITGuy]

Originally Posted by ::maroma:: 

I highly doubt it has anything at all to do with hubris. If Apple thought they could have integrated the Enterprise solutions well enough they would have. There's lots and lots of money to be made there, and you can be sure that the iPhone will have Enterprise-like functionality in the near future.

I agree. That is the only reason I'm keeping my iPhone. Otherwise I'd go back to my Treo.

[jasonsRX7]

The iPhone is absolutely not intended for corporate use if for no other reason than Apple/AT&T won't let the iPhone exist on a plan which is associated with a Tax ID number rather than a Social Security number.

I have been round and round with AT&T after activating my iPhone and 16 other lines. When I set the iPhone plan up, they said that I would be able to transfer it to one of the plans on the business account after 60 days. Now, for the past 3 days, they have been refusing to put the iPhone on the business plan because it is set up under a Tax ID number.

I've been thru local store managers, regional managers, business support managers and they're all saying the same thing.

So it doesn't matter how many enterprise ready features the iPhone has or doesn't have, if they won't let a business pay for it.

[fulnn]

humm, Apple/AT&T are quite tricky on this.

[SEkker]

I'm concerned this is not going to be easy for Apple to implement.

The latest problems with OS 10.5 appears to be Cisco VPN capability. Being forced to use VPN is a pain in the neck in the first place, but it at least lets me use my mac for business-related remote access.

If they cannot make THAT work reliably on the Mac, what makes us think they can do this well on the new iPhone?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by nstehle 

My company uses IPsec.

It's a shame that Apple didn't include ActiveSync in the first iteration. I think they could have blown the lid off the Blackberry culture. I'd love to see that particular culture go down in flames and be replaced by something this forward leaning.

How does Blackberry do it? I always thought that the only way to reproduce ActiveSync is with reverse engineered stuff?

[CorpITGuy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

How does Blackberry do it? I always thought that the only way to reproduce ActiveSync is with reverse engineered stuff?

I think it has to be licensed, not reverse-engineered. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

ActiveSync is a proprietary standard from MS but I always prefered it to BES. I miss it, but not enough to dump my iPhone.

[Todd Madson]

Blackberry devices don't use Activesync. Instead. most corporate enterprise setups
for Blackberry are utilizing a Blackberry Enterprise Server.

That way any user with a Blackberry who has entered a proper activation code
are hooked into their corporates exchange server via the BES and it's all live and
good to go.