If you start looking around in the Exchange Hosting offering,
everyone prides about their great features, industry experience, etc…In
this post, I expect you to understand what you should be expecting at
the base and as a minimum in the bundle.
Lots of free goodies are now “standard” set when they sell hosted mailboxes such as Spam/anti-virus protection,
license for Activesync/outlook, 30-day money back guarantee, instant
activation, flexible contracts etc. Hosters should also provide the
full backups, shared calendar/contacts and outlook anywhere. These are somewhat necessary features to start with.Read more here.
BlackBerry Curve is beyond smartphone since it includes all the technology you need to stay in touch and be productive. This is quiet handy, lightweight in design. So you can carry it easily.
Here are the few highlights of the features you will enjoy with blackberry curve,
Smartphone - Make calls easily with voice-activated dialing, speakerphone, mute button and conferencing. This is Bluetooth ready and capable of global roaming.
Email and text messaging - Integrate several accounts and receive all of your business and personal email automatically, including attachments. Enter your messages easily on the full QWERTY keyboard.
Instant messaging - Works with popular IM communities such as Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk.
Web browsing - View web sites in full color and use your thumb to navigate easily with the trackball. Bookmark your favorite sites and return to them with one click. Beware of “blackberry thumb”
Camera - The 2.0 megapixel camera includes digital zoom and built-in flash. Send your photos instantly via email, MMS or BlackBerry Messenger.
Media player - Listen to musics & podcasts while you respond to your messages, or download and watch video clips on the bright, colorful screen. The expandable memory allows you to store all your files on microSD cards.
Organizer - A calendar, address book and task list allow you to plan your day and stay in touch with business contacts and friends.
Maps - Just type an address (or click one in your list of contacts) and get turn-by-turn directions almost anywhere.
The fundamental idea of Grand Central is “Have one phone number for all your phones, for life.” Generally, when you change jobs, homes, relocate to new cities and change cell phones, you will need to let others know your recent phone numbers and it cost in many ways.
So the Grand Central comes into this picture to solve your problems whereby you can provide a single phone number and let rules handle all your phone numbers. In other words, whenever a person calls your “one number”, the call will reach based on the person’s relationship you set in the rules and the your “presence” at that point in time. There are so many other features they are offering, check this here.
I guess the following demo gives a better picture of understanding how Grand Central service works, click below on the YouTube from the founders Craig & Vincent
Sounds cool..! Great innovation..and no wonder why Google behinds this most exciting startup. You can count on Google as they begin to integrate Grand Central with Gmail & GTalk. Eventually, Google presence in small business sector will get strengthen to next level.
After all, this innovation will simplify the users life by having a single phone number and handle the calls based on the rules.
Forget about iPhone! Think Windows Mobile 6.0 if you are business user using Exchange 2007 as mail server.
If your current activesync setup is on the exchange version 2003, windows mobile 6.0 will still support. Nevertheless, the currently implemented activesync in exchange 2003 will not take advantage of all the new features introduced in windows mobile 6.0.
In a nutshell, the following self explanatory chart will help to explain the key difference between Windows Mobile 6.0 & Windows Mobile 5.0
If you look at the below picture of Windows Mobile 6.0 Device, it is clear that iPhone is not the only new kid on the block giving a trendy great new-look with sensitive touch screen interface. Here is a great demo on youtube
The iPhone is lacking core business features such as Wireless Email using “Push Mail” technology. The below picture shows Microsoft Exchange support, but it looks to me potentially is IMAP support. My first reason to guess this way is due to lack of official announcement from Apple regarding Exchange ActiveSync availability in iPhone. This could be one of the main reasons why corporates sent out mail to its employees worldwide advising not to buy iPhone, because employees might be in an impression that they can hook this iPhone into their corporate mobile messaging system (e.g., BlackBerry, Exchange ActiveSync OR Good)
Enterprises needs Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Blackberry connect or Good Technology compatibility for its employees to use the phone on the road to check email, calendar & contacts.
I guess Apple will introduce business support on its next model or through some kind of software upgrade/update. As of now, Windows Mobile Device works better for me as “smart phone” usage.
After all the noise and drama in launching iPhone, I still cannot understand why iPhone storage is limited to 8GB. It should have come up with at least 16GB.I wish we had a Zune Phone, converged from Windows Mobile 6 & Zune I suggest you read this tips before buying iPhone.
People are complaining for not having 3G in iPhone. I think, Apple chose EDGE rather 3G due to more coverage world wide. Again, it will not be a big deal for Apple to come up 3G, hopefully Apple might consider this in its next model. According to Microsoft, Exchange ActiveSync Licensing is extending to interested parties, read the quote below and more here.
“Microsoft offers a commercially reasonable, nonexclusive license so that other companies can use the Exchange ActiveSync Protocol in their own products. Microsoft will license its trade secrets and necessary patent claims for implementation of the protocol specification.
Microsoft offers a license for this mobile device synchronization protocol for Exchange Server 2003 and 2007 with documentation. The Exchange ActiveSync Protocol license is for a five-year term and based on annual projected sales volumes. Standard pricing is $100K or first-year’s royalties, whichever is higher, with a per unit royalty thereafter. Other pricing options are negotiable when appropriate.”
The below picture shows iPhone’s settings to get hooked with Microsoft Exchange. More iPhone pictures are found here.
Earlier, there were many corporates who sent out bulletin to its employees advising that company’s messaging system will not support iPhone and hence not to buy it. These companies were not very sure about its Microsoft Exchange Support and also did not want to bring more complexity into their existing Mobile Messaging environment where blackberry, Windows mobile and others are already in place.
I also heard from intermedia.net that they will be the first to offer Exchange email in iPhone. Read more details here on Intermedia.net’s plan.
Will iPhone capture the already congested Wireless Email Direct Push market?
Tech-Ed is the event of assorted geeks where you see enthusiasm, networking of Microsoft technologies, with Microsofties, IT pros, developers, vendors etc. Upcoming Tech-Ed for South East Asia will be held at Kula Lumpur Convention Center from 10-13 September, 2007. This is the place where “Microsofties” deep dive into the “SEA” & empower themselves with emerging Microsoft Technologies.
I will be off to make my mark at Tech-Ed 2007 SEA at KL, Malaysia, and spend valuable time to learn from the experts, share my knowledge with some of you guys, hands-on at the lab with latest & greatest in Microsoft especially Exchange 2007, OCS 2007 & MOSS 2007.
So why wait? If you are not registered yet, here is the link and below shown is current promotion as I write this blog post now. To answer most of your Tech-Ed related questions, visit here and Ed Quek scribble exclusively about Tech-Ed 2007 SEA event, so don’t forget to visit his blog.
Tech-Ed brings benefits in many ways to many people. I still remember, I started my site MessagingTalk.org and got the inspiration to get my MVP after attending Tech-Ed 2005 at Singapore. Every Tech-Ed is a win-win event for me personally, as I get more ideas from the experts around and I make connections with Technologists, entrepreneurs, IT pros and developers. If you can’t make it for Tech-Ed 2007 SEA, there are other places in Asia where you can make your mark. Here is Tech-Ed worldwide site.
What actually you can expect from Tech-Ed 2007 SEA?
2007 is “Year of release” for Microsoft and MS community started discussing about chain of new products and technologies. Every year, Tech-Ed event is getting to be huge and mining the precious of gold among the large number of sessions is challenge. In messaging and collaboration perspective, I would like to guide you on what to look for during Tech-Ed 2007 SEA.
Hmm…This could be a spark. You will also be eager to see what vendors could be offering on Exchange 2007. As you aware, the new High Availability & disaster recovery options built into Exchange 2007 might have caused some upheaval in the vendors offering.
In MessagingTalk.org, we have recently added Product DB section. This category is targeted for vendors who develop and sell solutions for MS Exchange customers in particular, e.g. Anti-Spam, High Availability, outlook plug-in, mobility & wireless etc.. Below are more detailed category:
We encourage you to limit the product summary to 200 words, you can also make use of tagging to categorize it better. Include the pricing if possible, otherwise just mention it as “Please call for a sales quote” and then include your contact as well. Below is a sample product db submission by Avepoint for its Public Folder Migrator product
Do submit your product under Product DB section. If the product is relevant to MessagingTalk’s visitors, we will accept the submission for a subscription fee of USD 100/- for the period of one year.
TechEd SEA 2007 is coming back.This time in Kuala Lumpur from Sept 10-13th, 2007.You may want to check Ed Quek’s blog here for more details - http://edteched.spaces.live.com/
I suggest you read 
