For years it’s been a pain getting Macs to talk to Exchange servers because more often than not the Exchange servers are managed by some pencilneck IT guy with a pressed shirt and a lifetime subscription to “Ballmer – Candid Photos of Everyone’s Favourite Microsoft Exec”. As a result it was hard to convince them to make the little changes necessary to get a Mac talking IMAP to an Exchange server, changes which wouldn’t affect anything. And more frustrating, I had to do it “blindfolded” in most cases because they wouldn’t let ME do it and I had to explain the “how” over the phone. Is it any wonder I have a low opinion of Microsoft Certified weenies.
Apple has announced iPhone OSX 2.0, new firmware available this coming June which will include Microsoft’s ActiveSync software to allow the Mac to talk to the Exchange Server directly. While we all laud this, the one caveat is that two friends of mine have now expressed annoyance because in their experience, ActiveSync is a bollocks (and let’s face it, Microsoft isn’t in the business of enabling third parties to connect to their servers, quite the opposite).
ActiveSync never was mooted for the Mac, but now we see it being released for iPhones within the next four months. That’s interesting from several points of view. There are few corporations planning wholesale replacement of their Windows clients with Mac clients but there must be a significant number of companies ready to buy thousands and thousands of iPhones in order to deploy smartphones in the field or to help the removal of RIM’s Blackberry which has a stranglehold on Mobile corporate email at the moment.
Apple must reckon that their future is in iPhones.