O2: business iPhone 3G will sync to Exchange without iTunes
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Applications, Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft, Apple on
But you’ll still need iTunes on every desktop to install applications. Would you put that in your organization?
We spent Friday with Telefonica at their new headquarters in Madrid, a campus laid out around a lake to deal with the climate; solar panels, vanes that push the heat up, a tower in each corner and wide roofs to add shade plus wireless antenna sprouting in the flowerbeds like candelabra. Telefonica has technology plans for the networks it runs as well, which includes O2.
Even Telefonica can’t actually show off the new iPhone yet: O2’s Steve Alder kept his in his pocket and described it instead. What he did show off was the price: free if you pay £45 or £75 a month for the tariff or £99 if you want the cheapest £30 a month plan. Existing iPhone owners get the same deal, although you have to sign up for the full 18 month contract again. None of the plans let you use the iPhone as a modem with your laptop and the price for international roaming is a hefty £50 for 50MB of data.
O2 will finally have a business tariff for the 3G iPhone, including a single bill for multiple handsets. And if you only want Exchange ActiveSync. O2 will be able to set that up for enterprises directly rather than making you put iTunes on each user’s desk to do it. You’ll be able to install apps you write for your own business without iTunes as well, according to Alder, but if you want to buy apps for the iPhone they’ll still have to come from the iTunes store - and you’ll still have to install them to each phone individually, through iTunes.
That’s going to hold back acceptance of the iPhone in the enterprise, which is used to the security and manageability of the BlackBerry. Even Microsoft has got the message, using industry standard OMA DM to control Windows Mobile 6.1 devices with the new System Center Mobile Device Manager using Active Directory. If you want to, you can force files on Windows Mobile handsets to be encrypted, block any application from Facebook clients to pre-installed games or stop users synching POP3 and IMAP email at all, as well as installing and updating apps automatically over the air to specific users or particular AD groups. And the VPN on Windows Mobile now uses IPsec and IKE (Internet Key Exchange) v2 rather than SSL for improved security and better management of mobile connectivity. Apple is picking IPsec too - but Cisco’s proprietary implementation of it.
O2 probably didn’t get the choice about getting involved in installing apps on iPhones; Apple is taking a generous 30% royalty and doesn’t want to share that with operators now that it has to subsidize the cost of the phone. O2 plans to produce some apps of its own, which fits in with chief operating officer Julio Linares’ view that the future is services - the usual mobile operator to becoming just an Internet pipe. Even iPhone cynics like me have to be impressed by the usability; 80% of O2 iPhone users are actually using email, Web browsing and the other tools that make it a smartphone.
-Mary
Rated: 80% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Adam Winogrodzki - July 10, 2008 on 11:34 am
Hello! I want to buy an iPhone already, but the contract is very expensive.
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