Using iPhone at Work; It Just Keeps Getting Easier

by Dan Dearing on 03/06/09 at 8:28 pm

Dan Dearing is the Vice President of Marketing & Product Management for Trust Digital and contributing editor for iPhoneCTO.

Many believe the iPhone 2.0 OS was made enterprise-ready by connecting it with Exchange email. Like many handset vendors before it, Apple licensed the handset side of the Exchange ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft and implemented it in the iPhone’s email client. This let Microsoft Exchange push emails and synchronize calendars and contacts with the iPhone using the same ActiveSync protocol that Exchange uses to synchronize with Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm OS. There was just one wrinkle – not every enterprise uses Exchange.

Gartner Dataquest’s report on email server market share in 2008 showed that Exchange had a 48 percent market share and was closely followed by a 40 percent worldwide share for Lotus Notes. So, if you worked for the more than 12,000 new organizations that bought their first Notes/Domino licenses in 2008, or you were employed by the more than half of the Fortune global 100 that already used Lotus Notes and Domino, you were out of luck. It seems that the iPhone was “sort of” enterprise-ready.

The popularity of the iPhone may be a key motivation for other email vendors to leverage the ActiveSync protocol. Recently, IBM’s Lotus Notes announced Lotus Notes Traveler for the iPhone. By implementing the email server side of the ActiveSync protocol in front of the Lotus Notes server, IBM is enabling the iPhone to sync natively with Lotus Notes. Now, from the perspective of an iPhone, sync with Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes is identical. The same applies to Google Calendar and Contacts: as of last year, Google announced contacts and calendar sync using the ActiveSync server protocol as well. So in 2009, it seems that things have turned around and all users now have the possibility to connect their iPhone to their work email.

This creates an interesting market trend. ActiveSync is quickly becoming the de facto standard for email sync, which is evidenced with the iPhone email client, and now being factory-shipped on the latest blockbuster device, the Palm Pre. Because ActiveSync can sync in the background, it is being advantaged over 3rd party email clients, which is great for users and enterprises. Unlike email sync solutions from RIM, Good and Sybase, ActiveSync is native and direct, without any intervening third party mobile middleware or network operation centers (NOCs). Blackberry aside, this migration to native email sync puts into question the need for a box in the datacenter to support push email to users. This drives down the cost of supporting push email, PIM sync of calendars and contacts, while also increasing the interoperability of handsets and email servers.

While ActiveSync benefits both users and their employers, it does create headaches for IT departments. First, it exposes the email server to the Internet and puts a critical IT asset at risk. Second, it can allow smartphone users to skirt around corporate policies that protect against loss of sensitive corporate data or other serious security breaches.

Fortunately, there are solutions such as the Trust Digital EMM platform that allow IT to enjoy the benefits of using ActiveSync while avoiding the pitfalls. The Trust Digital solution places a proxy in the datacenter DMZ that provides a BES-like solution for non-Blackberry devices. This solution leverages the ActiveSync protocol for email sync and delivers device and security management while providing access control for the email server. The beauty of this approach is that it is agnostic to the user device and the email server platform supported by IT since ActiveSync is becoming the standard to connect them together. That seems to have been accelerated by the success of the iPhone, as IT suppliers such as Google and IBM get on the bandwagon and make it easy for consumers to connect their smartphones to work email.

View Comments to “Using iPhone at Work; It Just Keeps Getting Easier”

MobileAdmin

Jun 6th, 2009

I love how ActiveSync is better then BES when it's not – it frequently locks up your device and you need to reset your device to get it working again.

Dan how are you addressing iPhone device level encryption? How are you addressing iPhones that jailbreak and can circumvent the EAS policy?

ANYONE out there find a way to eliminate the need for iTunes? How about locking out AppStore? Audit of SMS/TXT messages? Disable camera? How about the internal applications your develop – still no way to deploy and manage that on your own – it's all about Apple right now and feeding their Ecosystem. Whats the reporting like and how granual can you get? NO EAS product will provide you MDS type VPN access to your backend. I've seen all the competing solutions and nothing even comes close to RIM's TCO when you put it down on paper.

If your company has thousands of Blackberries there is still no compeling reason to put in yet another solution (that your BB's cannot use) other then pleasing users of those devices. You don't have the same level of control as BES unless you add on yet another product and in many cases (SMS audit) are not even available so you just present two standards and in my mind a glaring hole in your security.
MobileAdmin

Jun 6th, 2009

I love how ActiveSync is better then BES when it's not – it frequently locks up your device and you need to reset your device to get it working again.

Dan how are you addressing iPhone device level encryption? How are you addressing iPhones that jailbreak and can circumvent the EAS policy?

ANYONE out there find a way to eliminate the need for iTunes? How about locking out AppStore? Audit of SMS/TXT messages? Disable camera? How about the internal applications your develop – still no way to deploy and manage that on your own – it's all about Apple right now and feeding their Ecosystem. Whats the reporting like and how granual can you get? NO EAS product will provide you MDS type VPN access to your backend. I've seen all the competing solutions and nothing even comes close to RIM's TCO when you put it down on paper.

If your company has thousands of Blackberries there is still no compeling reason to put in yet another solution (that your BB's cannot use) other then pleasing users of those devices. You don't have the same level of control as BES unless you add on yet another product and in many cases (SMS audit) are not even available so you just present two standards and in my mind a glaring hole in your security.
iPhone app reviews

Sep 25th, 2009

Technology today is astounding. I personally own an iPhone and can attain to the statement that it was enterprise ready circa launch date. Though not every business uses exchange, they do hold almost half of the market share, so when iPhone connected with exchange, they were developing another brilliant idea.
iPhone app reviews

Sep 25th, 2009

Technology today is astounding. I personally own an iPhone and can attain to the statement that it was enterprise ready circa launch date. Though not every business uses exchange, they do hold almost half of the market share, so when iPhone connected with exchange, they were developing another brilliant idea.