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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

What's New with Exchange 2010 ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile

Some great new changes are coming with Exchange Server 2010 ActiveSync.

Many more partners beyond Windows Mobile have licensed the ActiveSync protocol for syncing email to your mobile device. Here are just a few:

Architecture-wise, Exchange 2010 ActiveSync has the same connectivity flow as Exchange 2007.

Here are some of the new Exchange Server 2010 ActiveSync features:

Block/Allow/Quarantine List
You can setup a single list to block/allow mobile devices as needed. You can also quarantine devices such as new untested devices, etc.

Over the Air Update ModeYou can now push new Outlook Mobile updates and/or new versions to Windows Mobile 6.1 and above. This is really nice since you no longer have to wait for a new Windows Mobile OS version to obtain a new version of Outlook Mobile.

SMS SyncThe ability to send SMS text messages through Exchange and Exchange ActiveSync is used to sync SMS messages with a user’s mobile device. Benefits of SMS sync:

  • User can use OWA, Outlook, and Outlook Mobile to respond
  • SMS messages are backed up on the server
  • Recipients can respond to messages
  • User can switch “screens” while still seeing all their messages

IMAP/POP3 Service DiscoveryYou can now autodiscover/autoconfigure the IMAP/POP3 settings from your mobile device by just specifying your email address, just like you can now with Outlook 2007.

Here are some of the new Outlook Mobile features:

Conversation ViewConversation view is invaluable. This allows you to have a nicer mobile email experience when trying to skim through the onslaught of emails. This is the same experience you will have in Exchange 2010 OWA and Outlook 2010, but really makes a huge difference on a mobile device.

Reply State
You can now see which emails you have replied to or forwarded.

Conversation Actions
You can now ignore threads, move entire threads to folders, etc. from your mobile device.

Nickname Cache
Very nice that your nicknames follow you now. Especially useful for external recipients you email often.

Voice Card
You no longer have to download an attached voicemail before you can play it. You just hit play and hear the voicemail. Another cool feature is the ability to see a written transcription of the voicemail in the body of the message. Very useful for meetings and noisy airports, where you can't play the voicemail.

Get Free/Busy
I love this feature. You can now easily check someone's Free/Busy times at a glance from your phone instead of breaking out the laptop, etc.

As you can see, there are some very useful features coming to Exchange Server 2010 ActiveSync and the new Outlook Mobile.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for a nice quick introduction to Exch 2010 features. I could get a nice high level idea in matter of seconds!

    Wondering if you know the answer to this situation: I was experimenting with the quarantine feature. I set UUID of my iPhone as the only allowed device. Now that I know how it works, I would like to remove this restriction. Do you know of a way to do so?

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comment! It is my hope that you find the information here useful. Let others know if this post helped you out, or if you have a comment or further information.