Potential Email Problem with iPhone

[indig0blue]

Hi Everyone,

I spoke with my IT department yesterday and evidently that they will not enable IMAP on our MS Exchange server due to what they called "security issues". I don't know anything about this stuff, so there very well may be security issues.

In any case, if IMAP and POP are disabled at my job's Exchange server, what are my options for getting the "push email" experience with my work email?

Thanks.

 

[feelthefire]

I'm not surprised. the iPhone is not designed to be a secure phone, which is important for a lot of companies. Without their permissions, you may not be able to recieve work email on your iPhone, because as far as I know it has no protocols for IT policies since it is the least productive smartphone I've seen. Without IT policies, your company may refuse to let you use the phone for business since they can't secure it or govern its use.

Without them enabling IMAP or POP, you may be completely out of luck on this one. Blackberries use blackberry enterprise which is secured, and palms can directly use microsoft exchange servers, but there is nothing like that available for the iPhone. And I don't think "web 2.0" will have enough power to have an app deevloped for it, either.

 

[yg17]

Wirelessly posted (HTCP4350-Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC))

Hi Everyone,

I spoke with my IT department yesterday and evidently that they will not enable IMAP on our MS Exchange server due to what they called "security issues". I don't know anything about this stuff, so there very well may be security issues.

In any case, if IMAP and POP are disabled at my job's Exchange server, what are my options for getting the "push email" experience with my work email?

Thanks.

a blackberry, or better yet, windows mobile

seriously, wm is awesome and its integration with exchange is amazing and something the iphone will never come close to

 

[applehero]

My IT group said the same thing. They don't want to open the firewall. I was also told that if I'm inside the firewall, then it is not a problem. I'm going to wait until I get mine to determine which option I'm going to go with, but here are my 2 ideas....

1) I have webmail access, so I can just use Safari to check my email as I need to. Sometime I hate having a Blackberry as it makes people think that I am always available.

2) Set my work email to redirect to my .Mac alias, that way if something urgent comes up I'll know about it.

Not the best nor ideal solutions, but hey, either will work.

For me, I'm getting the iPhone because I'm tired of the convenience and accessibility of Blackberry. I want some privacy in my life again. Of course, if Apple does start supporting push email via either blackberry connect or MS Push, I'm sure I'll start using it again as I just can't resist. But if I don't have the ability, then it's not a problem. That being said, iPhone has everything I'm looking for and I can't wait.

 

[applehero]

Wirelessly posted (HTCP4350-Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC))




seriously, wm is awesome and its integration with exchange is amazing and something the iphone will never come close to

Sacrilege....

 

[indig0blue]

I guess, I am wondering if this is a dealbreaker for me. I guess I can always view my emial via Outlook Web access that we use but this is hardly convenient.

I love the iPhone and what it could be capable of being, but I am slowly moving to the middle of the road in terms of my excitement for this device. Initially, I would have been really mad if I wasn't able to get one at launch. Now, I am of the mindset that "If I get one great! If not, I can wait."

I am also thinking more and more that I should wait for rev2 of the device. I don't think this email issue will be resolved any time soon, but for this kind of money, I would sure like a some kind miniSD or other card slot for expanded storage. Just so that the life of the device is extended.

Back to the email issue, the only thing I was thinking of trying would be to create a yahoo or gmail account and have my work email forwarded to that account. Then the emails could be pushed from that "staging" email address. I am not sure if that is a breach of security as well or not.

 

[yg17]

Sacrilege....

no, truth.

automatic, over the air sync of my contacts, calendars, tasks, e-mail. e-mail is push as well. it's awesome. I can make a change in any of the above in outlook/web access, or on my phone and the change is automatically synced to the exchange server or my phone, depending on where the change was made. I no longer have to mess with plugging my phone into my computer and manually syncing. The iPhone will never have that sort of awesomeness built in.

Back to the email issue, the only thing I was thinking of trying would be to create a yahoo or gmail account and have my work email forwarded to that account. Then the emails could be pushed from that "staging" email address. I am not sure if that is a breach of security as well or not.

if they won't enable IMAP for security, then they almost certainly don't want e-mails being forwarded elswehere. What they don't know won't hurt them, but you're putting your job at risk if you do that without checking policy first

 

[applehero]

The iPhone will never have that sort of awesomeness built in.

I'm not questioning the functionality of WM, but I think it's a bold statement, especially for an Apple user/fan, to say that iPhone will never have that sort of awesomeness built in. WM has been out there for several years now and it is just now getting to where blackberry has been for years. Apple's birth in the market place is bringing new technology and new OS standards to the game. So they lack a push sync mechanism with rev 1. I don't believe WM had that until their last version.

It won't stay that way for long. Apple is notorious for giving people what they want.

 

[indig0blue]

if they won't enable IMAP for security, then they almost certainly don't want e-mails being forwarded elswehere. What they don't know won't hurt them, but you're putting your job at risk if you do that without checking policy first

Well, I definitely don't want to do that. I think I will just see how it goes not having emails shot to me every second. If anything it might be therapeutic. I still want the phone but I am not enamored the way that I used to be.

I am not a big religious guy, but I think instead of this being the "Jesus phone" it might have to be renamed after one of the apostles that didnt do as much or something. lol.

 

[joeconvert]

Hi Everyone,

In any case, if IMAP and POP are disabled at my job's Exchange server, what are my options for getting the "push email" experience with my work email?

Thanks.

Will they implement a admin rule to forward a copy of all your mail to another address? If so, you can integrate the iphone with that account and change the reply to address to your corporate email account. This would likely work - granted, it's a hack - but it would work.

Ran into the same problem with my Treo700w and my current 750. IT has a Barracuda spam firewall and apparently they can't get the Exchange 2003 mobile features pack to work properly behind it. So I have them bounce a copy of the message to a hosted exchange account at 4smartphone.

 

[joeconvert]

if they won't enable IMAP for security, then they almost certainly don't want e-mails being forwarded elswehere. What they don't know won't hurt them, but you're putting your job at risk if you do that without checking policy first

Don't understand that statement. Unless every message you send is encrypted, email is inherently insecure. I understand not enabling IMAP. I would would be much more concerned with the method of authentication on a machine that is likely connected to the local network and data transfer method(IMAP vs native exchange or OWA) much more then protecting message content. Plus enabling a service on a production environment for a small percentage os users is a bit of an IT no-go.

Expect any email message not encrypted end to end to be read by the world. Not that it happens often, but it is a good awareness of the lack of security you get with email.

 

[TenaciousPZ]

Email Attachments??

Is there any idea / information about how the iPhone will handle e-mail attachments?

There is no word processing or "desktop" on the phone, so how will it treat an e-mail with a word.doc attached?

I certainly send and receive a lot more of that than I do photos.