[Gasp!] There’s only seven days left before this mysterious “iPod/cellphone/internet/YouTube” hybrid is unleashed on the unsuspecting masses. Frankly, with that small a time frame, I am shocked at the dearth of information, coverage, and wild speculation about this intriguing new product.
In all seriousness, there is some concern from IT officials that even if they have no official plans to support the iPhone in a corporate setting, they might not have much choice, particularly if a higher-up really wants an iPhone really wants to use it for work-related tasks (training videos? “Merger and Acquisitions” playlist? Blackmail fodder from the company holiday party? The possibilities are endless!) Anyway, IT people are concerned because as far as anyone knows, the iPhone doesn’t support Lotus Notes, Windows Outlook, or any of the other annoying applications commonly found in an average corporate office.
Then there’s the whole business about needing an iTunes account to set up an iPhone. That development has IT managers worried about copyright quagmires and storage issues:
Also, the iPhone will pose a nightmare for IT because it requires an iTunes music directory account for each user, IT managers said, potentially putting IT in the position of providing song storage capacity and justifying that the copyrights for the songs were not violated or that the songs were properly paid for.
Seven more days, fair readers. Just seven more days.
This is typical of the horrible attitude of so many corporate IT departments.
If everyone just used open standards instead of, say, Exchange, there would be no worries.
Yeah I can see how I would be convincing my company to let me pick one of these up. "I am not getting it for the iPod functionality, really."
And, "oh, I just lost my iPhone and it has some confidential data on it, can you wipe it?" Thanks.
As an IT professional, I agree fully with the previous poster.
I would much rather provide IT services using open and thoroughly documented technologies, rather than having to use Microsoft Exchange.
The problem I face, is that my employers want to use Outlook because 'everyone else uses it'.
No matter how much I assure them that they will be able to access their email just as easily with an IMAP based email client, they still feel that they would take a step back in terms of functionality.
They also have one indisputable trumph card up their collective sleeves.
Blackberry.
The Blackberry Enterprise Server will only connect to the 'big three' email server platforms from Microsoft, Lotus and Novell.
This means that unless I use one of those three, the executives can't get their emails in the timely fashion to which they are accustomed.
So much for me implementing CommuniGate Pro. (I really wish Stalker Systems would get busy and implement a connector for Blackberry Enterprise Server.)
It's a checkbox! That's it. Check one damned box and suddenly your Exchange server supports IMAP. The Linux users and Outlook haters at my company pushed IT into checking the box. The hilarious part is that they resisted because it isn't secure. "Okay" they said "check the box that says 'use SSL'." The hilarious part? IMAP over SSL (2 whole check boxes, how can any IT staffer handle it) is more secure than our Exchange configuration.
Of course, I still can't bring an iPhone to work because we aren't allowed to have cameras--blast!
A little dark fingernail polish painted over the camera lens on the back of the iPhone should solve that issue. :0)
Dave-O: Indeed, Exchange does support IMAP.
The problem is that it's not terribly good at it.
Admittedly Exchange 2003 is better at it than 2000, and I suspect 2008 will be better still.
However, it still doesn't match the rock solid reliability that I am used to from some of my previous jobs.
It's nice when IT does bother to check the box. Ironically, it's what enables me to use my Blackberry without kicking in an extra $10 for the enterprise service.
RIM needs to get their act together and support push IMAP. Then maybe we could begin a long, slow recovery process.
Interestingly, gmail on my Blackberry seems to be nearly instantaneous. I wonder if Google's "Apps for your domain" packages behaves similarly?
Anyway, all that to say that there are alternatives, but between the big 3 and blackberry, it's hard to get all your ducks in a row to support them.