iPhone, Blackberry, or Smartphone/PocketPC? (for SBS email)

blargoe

I'm looking for some input on a mobile device for my customer. My customer is a small office with a single SBS 2003 R2 server. Husband and wife team with a few employees.

The lady owner contacted me today and wants to get her husband an iPhone for Christmas. I presume, because he is into music and he thought it was a cool gadget. But she needs it to be able to interface with the SBS mail server at the office to retrieve email, read any attachments, and preferably have some functionality similar to Outlook.

I really don't know much about all these new fangled phones.

I don't know anything about the iPhone to know if it is a viable solution for access to office email or not. She gave me the second option of getting him a blackberry... but don't they require that BES server piece to work with exchange? I would shy away from having to install a heavy piece of software on the SBS server, if that is the only way to get it to work.

And then there are the Windows Mobile devices. I have used them a good bit and they have pretty good integration with Exchange. But are there any really "cool" Windows phones out there that will do the music and stuff like that (assuming that is important, but not as important as the email)?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Blargoe

paintb4707

This is the windows mobile phone I just got. I love it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875998228

Only complaint really is speakerphone, the quality isn't too great. That and the dialpad that comes with windows mobile is pretty damn ugly and hard to use, but thats easily resolved by downloading the various dialpad skins out there.

As far as Blackberries working with Exchange, no you don't need BES. You could simply enable POP3 and that would be compatible with either a windows mobile phone or blackberry.

I don't know much about the Iphones though. I'm sure they have POP3 support.

But honestly, if your customer wants all the features of Outlook, it doesn't get any closer than using a windows mobile phone since the interface is very similar. You can also view excel spreadsheets and word docs.

dynamik

I'm personally waiting to see what becomes of the Google Android platform:http://code.google.com/android/

A few people at work have iPhones and they work fairly well for email. It's not going to work as well as the Windows Mobile devices, but it will sync with Outlook and you can access mail via pop/imap. I actually tried to talk a few people out of getting them for this very reason, but they ignored me, and I as much as I hate to admit it, they work fairly well. Not perfect, but usable.

I don't have any experience with Blackberries, so I can't help you there. I don't think there are any "cool" Windows Mobile phones. From the sounds of it, it's a slow, buggy platform that gets worse with each release. You might also want to look into the Palm Treos. I hear good things about them.

paintb4707

dynamik wrote:

I'm personally waiting to see what becomes of the Google Android platform:http://code.google.com/android/

A few people at work have iPhones and they work fairly well for email. It's not going to work as well as the Windows Mobile devices, but it will sync with Outlook and you can access mail via pop/imap. I actually tried to talk a few people out of getting them for this very reason, but they ignored me, and I as much as I hate to admit it, they work fairly well. Not perfect, but usable.

I don't have any experience with Blackberries, so I can't help you there. I don't think there are any "cool" Windows Mobile phones. From the sounds of it, it's a slow, buggy platform that gets worse with each release. You might also want to look into the Palm Treos. I hear good things about them.

Palm Treos have windows mobile on them

I haven't had any bad experience with windows mobile on my phone. It can get slow if you aren't aware that programs stay in the memory until you clear em out. But once again there's hacks out there to prevent that. That's the great thing about WM, extremely hackable. Not to mention, there's even a WM version of VNC. You couldn't VNC into your exchange server with a Blackberry now could ya? :P Additionally theres the ability for telnet and SSH as well.

On a side note, I found a cool link regarding windows mobile phones:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/mobile/device-images.mspx

CoryS

After skimming I would vote for a Treo (biased as I have one ) or anything with Windows Mobile on it and use Exchange Active Sync, my cousin at 3M absolutely got SMOKED on his support line when RIMs services went down a few months back, I really hate the idea of not being in control of that type of critical system.

dynamik

paintb4707 wrote:

Palm Treos have windows mobile on them

I haven't had any bad experience with windows mobile on my phone. It can get slow if you aren't aware that programs stay in the memory until you clear em out. But once again there's hacks out there to prevent that.

On a side note, I found a cool link regarding windows mobile phones:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/mobile/device-images.mspx

I was referring to the one's with PalmOS, but you're right, some do.

Are all WM users as tech-savvy as you? I think that's where the problem lies

Nice link. I'm debating what my next phone is going to be, and I was kind of turned off to WM because of all the negative commentary I see. Maybe it's just a case of a few who have problems being louder than everyone else. Thanks for sharing your experiences; I'll give it another look.

xwesleyxwillisx

I have an iPhone myself so I can speak from a first-person perspective.

The iPhone supports any IMAP or POP server (with ssl support) with its mobilemail app. However, it only supports push email for Yahoo and Gmail. It can be connected to an Exchange account 2 ways:

1. Enable IMAP on the Exchange server. Some see this as a security risk.

2. Register for an account at syncml.biz. Their Synchronica Mobile Gateway software interfaces with the Web Access portion of the Exchange server and connects to the iPhone via IMAP.

3. Simply use OWA via the Safari web browser. It isn't as graceful as the mail app but it flat out works without any hassle with Exchange.

I personally have a Mobile Gateway account and it works well for the most part. Again, it isn't push like you will get with a Blackberry or Treo, but I love my phone too much to care.

Another small drawback to the iPhone is the inability to sync contacts, calendars, etc... ota like you can with a Windows Mobile Device. In order to sync these you have to manually connect to iTunes.

It is important to note all these limitations are software related and can be fixed via new firmware or 3rd party apps. In fact, there is currently a 3rd party working on ota synchronization of calenders, contacts, etc. On the other end, the Blackberry and other smartphones will never have the iPhone's interface, ease of use, and killer web browser.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Darthn3ss

I just got a HTC 6800, awesome phone.

RTmarc

iPhone is not a viable option for a business phone in my opinion. There are too many things that you can't do with it such as the inability to sync contacts, calender, tasks, etc. I know that it can be fixed via software updates but on the other hand, they may not ever be fixed. For the professional arena, I'm going to stick to either Blackberry or Smart Phone for now.

My company opted to go the Blackberry route. We are small enough that we are still able to utilize the Blackberry Enterprise Server Express. The BESE is a free download that comes with a single CAL. From there you purchase Small Business CALs from RIM, typically in 5-packs. The BESE is good up to 15 users I believe; it may be one more or less than that number. In the event you do outgrow the BESE, you can upgrade to the BES version for pretty decent discount; I believe they give you credit for your purchased CALs. The BESE is the same thing as the BES but it is limited to a set number of users; so you aren't losing out on any of the features.

My 8830 Blackberry Pearl from Verizon is money.

blargoe

It turns out that she decided the new gizmos and gadgets were more important than being completely functional as an "Outlook client", so they are going with the iPhone. I'm slightly disappointed, but I'm going to experiment with some stuff I found online with OWA/OMA over Safari and with IMAP over SSL and see how it goes. I'm not real excited about having to punch another hole in the firewall, but que sera sera or whatever.

JDMurray

RTmarc wrote:

My 8830 Blackberry Pearl from Verizon is money.

The 8830 is definitely gonna be my next phone.

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/BlackBerry-8830.htm