iPhone & Microsoft Exchange Server? Myth or Fact?

I've never seen a more hyped-up product in the messaging world than the iPhone. At groupSPARK, we've been getting at least 2 calls or emails every day from our partners, who resell one of our SaaS offerings, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 hosting, about iPhone compatibility. Their customers are SMB's who depend on email to run their business. And being the genuis at marketing that Steve Jobs is, it seems that everyone is talking about the iPhone, which will be available on Friday through AT&T. Also, both Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue at the New York Times published reviews on the iPhone yesterday.

The big question we hear from potential iPhone buyers is: can the iPhone sync wirelessly with Microsoft Exchange Server? Well, based on the information that we've seen, the answer is a yes and a no. Microsoft offers its ActiveSync protocol for synchronization with mobile devices; ActiveSync allows for syncing of mail folders, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks wirelessly. Obviously devices running the Windows Mobile operating system include ActiveSync; however, other mobile devices can license the ActiveSync protocol for a minimum of $100k, as Nokia and Motorola did.

It appears like the iPhone will not come with ActiveSync - at least not in the initial release. I suspect that Apple will include ActiveSync in a subsequent release - confirmed by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley who believes that Apple has already licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft.. And I suspect that Apple is similarly looking to license BlackBerry Connect from RIM to suport wireless sync with BlackBerry Enterpriser Servers.

But, wait - Exchange users - there is still a way to make it work - partially! The iPhone does support IMAP Idle, also known as IMAP Push. However, IMAP only syncs the mail folders and not the Calendar, Contacts, or Tasks folders. So, you can at least sync your email from Exchange Server. However, your Exchange Server will have to have the IMAP port from the Internet, which is a security concern. Just make sure that you don't use regular IMAP because it transmits the username & password unencrypted; instead, you should use IMAP over SSL to ensure security.