Welcome to the third issue of IT Briefing notes
from appiChar. This time we’re concentrating on
mobile email, which has become increasingly
popular over the years, and not just for City
lawyers and bankers. We’ve all seen people
staring blankly at their BlackBerrys (or “CrackBerrys”,
as their often known due to their
addictiveness!) on the train or more
frustratingly on the pavement, but are they
really that indispensable, and are there any
other options? This briefing aims to give you
an overview of the two most popular systems,
Research in Motion’s (RIM’s) BlackBerry and
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and provide you with
the information you need to choose the right
devices for your organisation.
Mobile Email – What is it?
Mobile phones have, for many years, been able to
access email from various sources, including
webmail (such as Microsoft’s Outlook Mobile
Access) and POP3 mailboxes (such as you get with
a standard broadband account or home
connection). However, what sets the BlackBerry
and Windows Mobile devices apart is the ability
to accept “push” email, and to synchronise
wirelessly with a mailbox without any
intervention or scheduled downloads. For
example, when you receive an email in the
office, and your device is synchronised with
that email account, the device will also receive
it instantaneously. When you read the email on
your device, your inbox in the office registers
that email as having been read, and so on. It
is this level of synchronisation that is the
root cause of all the fuss and excitement about
mobile email, as it finally means you can deal
with your emails as though you are in the
office, regardless of where you actually are.
BlackBerry BlackBerry
devices come in a range of shapes and sizes but
all have one thing in common – they all have a
hardware keyboard. Some boast a full QWERTY
keyboard, while others combine a keyboard with a
standard mobile phone pad and use SureType,
RIM’s answer to (and many would say superior to)
T9 mobile predictive text. By default, the
devices can send and receive email from up to
ten email accounts, send and receive text
messages and browse the Internet. They can also
be set up to synchronise an Outlook calendar and
Contacts when connected to a PC with a USB
cable. Finally, they can receive and open Word,
Excel and PDF attachments, allowing you to read
that urgent report on your BlackBerry before you
get to your meeting.
BlackBerrys
can be used with Microsoft Exchange server, if
your organisation has one, or with other email
services provided by your BlackBerry service
provider (Orange, Vodafone, etc.) You can even
set them up to synchronise with free email
services like Yahoo! and GMail.
Where
BlackBerry devices fall down is their ability to
synchronise anything other than your main email
folder wirelessly, unless you have a BlackBerry
Enterprise Server (BES) installed, which can be
very expensive. They will not synchronise Inbox
subfolders, or your calendar or contacts over
the air. Finally, although you can receive
various different file types as attachments on
your device, you cannot edit the contents
directly on the device.
Windows Mobile Windows
Mobile devices also come in range of formats,
including devices with QWERTY keyboards (both
integrated below the screen and sliding out from
under the device), mobile phone pads and even
“soft” keyboards on pure touchscreen models.
The software comes in two versions: Windows
Mobile Standard (previously Smartphone), which
is usually found on the more “phone-like”
devices, and Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket
PC), which tends to be on the larger PDA
devices. With Windows Mobile 6, the latest
iteration of the software, both versions now
come with Office Mobile, which includes cut-down
versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet
Explorer, meaning you can not only read
attachments in these applications, but also edit
them or create new documents if you wish.
Windows Mobile devices make use of a feature
introduced in Microsoft Exchange 2003 Service
Pack 2, which enables push email (and contacts
and calendars). All you need to do is set up
Microsoft ActiveSync on your PC and then enter
the details of your Exchange server, your
username and password, and what you would like
to synchronise (including which subfolders and
attachments). Once set up you can unplug the
cable and continue to synchronise your mailbox
wirelessly.
However, the product’s reliance on Exchange
2003 (or Exchange 2007) is its Achilles Heel. A
large number of organisations are already
running Exchange 2003, so upgrading to Service
Pack 2 (which should be done anyway due to the
number of security issues it fixes), is free and
easy. But you will only get full push email if
you connect your device to an Exchange 2003
mailbox, meaning that those organisations
without Exchange, or with an earlier version,
will be forced to continue downloading their
emails on a scheduled basis, as they would do
with normal POP3 mailboxes, and miss out on all
the wireless synchronisation benefits.
Which one is best for me?
Choosing a standard mobile email device for your
organisation will depend on a number of things,
such as your existing infrastructure, data
tariffs available to you from your mobile phone
provider, and whether your chief exec already
has one (never underestimate this as a deciding
factor). For us, the answer seems simple: if
you already have Exchange 2003 or later then
you’ve already made the bulk of the investment,
and should make the most of it by deploying
Windows Mobile devices. However if you don’t,
or you have people who already have or
specifically want Blackberrys, go with
BlackBerry. Mobile email solutions will only
work if the people who have them, use them. If
they don’t like the devices they have been given
then they won’t use them to their full
potential, and you may find you have wasted a
lot of money. Both systems work well once
properly configured, and both can be extended
with additional software to suit your
organisation’s needs. Just make sure your
people want to use them first!
James
White,
Service Delivery Manager, appiChar Ltd
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