Bye Bye BlackBerry

I recently configured my Exchange 2003 SP2 for Active Sync and Direct Push email and I must say I am greatly impressed by its capabilities. For a quick and easy video on how to configure this visit the Exchange Team blog video here: http://msexchangeteam.com/videos/9/train/entry426996.aspx  I have the HP 6945 PDA phone that works great with the Exchange 2003 SP2, I have owned a black berry before and I must say this, e-mail’s sent directly from the Exchange servers are prettier and more reliable than those sent from the blackberry.  Listed are some of the improvements that I got from the tech-ed interview with Max Ciccotosto to the Exchange 2007 version of Exchange Active Sync. Most of these were desperately needed and I with these improvements now that empower the administrator, I must say, I wouldn’t invest in any RIM stock at this point! 

Mobility features on Exchange 2007 

·        Flagging Items like you are used to in Outlook 2003/2007. 

·        HTML Email , bringing richness of HTML email onto the PDA 

·        Easily download the entire message. In Exchange 2007 you will be able to download the message inline and real time rather than wait and click for the message to download today. 

·        Email message with a link can be clicked and fetched from your corporate intranet without requiring any VPN.  

·        Search on the device, you have limited number of emails on the device. In Exchange 2007, you can search your mailbox through your device. 

·        Improvements in appointments and calendar with Exchange 2007. 

·        Introduction out of office support in Exchange 2007 which currently doesn’t exist on the device today. 

·        Will you need another client to run Exchange 2007? Windows Mobile 5.0 with MSFP will be able to experience most of the improvements. At the same time to benefit from every new feature, you will most likely need a new version of the client. 

·        Benefits on the administration side include : 

o       Policy control is more granular. You can create
Mobile mailbox policies for example you can create a separate policy for your execs, consulting and sales people. 

o       Password manager for the device, specify history, complexity among other things for the password. o       Improvements with management of attachments in an email. 

o       You know what devices users are using, what they are doing etc. You get a lot of information on users and their devices. 

 o       Can a user be locked to a device? Yes, you can do it now, you can restrict a user to a specific device by using the device ID of a device.

 o       Reporting capabilities? Increased reporting capabilities. You can go to the server level as well, data coming in and coming out? Is the server overloaded?