server alert, advantages of a popular phone

[diver110]

It turns out that if you are synching Outlook with a server, not all servers can handle Adroid phones. I don't know if an app like Touchdown would fix this, so if you need to synch with a server, check this out. Because I wanted to go with AT&T anyway for tethering reasons (a fairly unique situation), I went with an Iphone and have been quite happy with it, though the jury is still out on the touch keypad. An advantage of the Iphone is that the world has adapted to it. My Ford Escape synch system will not recognize all phones, but does recognize the Iphone, given how popular it is. This also may be an issue for some people, not for others.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Umm, what servers have you run into that can't handle an Android phone? What phones and what versions of Exchange?

 

[diver110]

I don't know how unique the server where I work is (a university), but its site says something like it can not dependably support android phones....(apparently any of them). My Ford Escape seems to be phone by phone, so a popular Android phone like the X probably would not be an issue, less popular ones might be. For a lot of people all of this is going to be irrelevant, of course.

 

[A.Nonymous]

There's a huge difference between saying they won't support something and saying the server doesn't support it. We've got a client running an Exchange 2007 server with ActiveSync. It'll support any phone with with ActiveSync on it from Android to iPhone to WinMo. However, the company has made a decision that they only want to support WinMo. So, if you call with your iPhone, we tell you that you'll have to figure it out yourself and we don't support it. This doesn't mean that the phone won't work. It means that the company or school or whatever doesn't want to spend the time screwing with it.

 

[diver110]

There's a huge difference between saying they won't support something and saying the server doesn't support it. We've got a client running an Exchange 2007 server with ActiveSync. It'll support any phone with with ActiveSync on it from Android to iPhone to WinMo. However, the company has made a decision that they only want to support WinMo. So, if you call with your iPhone, we tell you that you'll have to figure it out yourself and we don't support it. This doesn't mean that the phone won't work. It means that the company or school or whatever doesn't want to spend the time screwing with it.

This is what it says:

Google Android phones (Verizon Droid, etc.) do not fully and natively support the Exchange Activesync protocol yet. Therefore, at this time, we do not recommend or support Android-based smartphones.