Treo 650 and Exchange 2003

I now have a Treo 650 (the unlocked/unbranded one) and I can use its built-in VersaMail to connect over ActiveSync to our Exchange 2003 system. This is all done over SSL, both sending and receiving.

On the good side, it is extremely easy to setup (granted I had already setup the Exchange 2003 system to be ready for this) and it works quite well.

On the bad side, VersaMail doesn't have any anti-spam or filtering capabilities. It also doesn't allow anything but the Inbox to be retrieved - which is fine for me. But depending on how your mail gets distributed to folders, it is possible to miss mail that way (especially if your Outlook is running on your desktop and is filtering mail out to folders while you are away from your desk and trying to check mail via your Treo 650).

The lack of an anti-spam feature is actually probably a good thing in the end since you are likely paying for your data access (to download the email) and you don't want to have to download 20 messages to your Treo 650 if they are just spam.
So if you have an anti-spam solution on your Exchange server which then quarantines the spam out, or something that marks it so that it is put into a different folder other than your Inbox - that way VersaMail/ActiveSync won't download it.

For my needs, it has really been great so far. Some of my users are wanting a bit more and I am not quite sure what else can use ActiveSync at this point (on the Treo 650 that is). Mainly they want to get/add their contacts remotely, and have the calendar be slightly smarter (right now it always assumes the server is right).

I definitely recommend it so far as a mobile e-mail/web tool - now if only I could get an unlimited data plan here in Bermuda.
(I also wrote up something over at Epinions about the phone)

Posted by Eric at February 21, 2005 06:10 PM | TrackBack