iPhone Microsoft Exchange Email Problems

Paul Robichaux, is a Microsoft MVP, a Mac user since 1984, an iPhone user since July 8th of last year, and an Exchange admin since 1995. So he's got the technical credentials to know what he's talking about when he blasts the new iPhone's issues with Microsoft Exchange integration.

Here's a teaser:

I should point out that Exchange ActiveSync is a protocol that supports lots of different content types and protocol option. Apple, like most other EAS licensees, has implemented a subset of EAS. I'm complaining about Apple's implementation here, not EAS itself.
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There are a number of other Windows Mobile 6 features missing here: for instance, you cannot flag or unflag messages for follow-up; you can't set out of office messages or timings, and the device will frequently complain if you try to throw away a message that a client- or server-side junk filter has already moved elsewhere. The extremely convenient press-and-hold shortcuts that WM provides (like "d" to delete or "m" for move) are of course absent here, too.

Bottom line: mail is prettier on the iPhone.

Ouch! Pretty doesn't cut it when you want email productivity. That along with several other problems he had with Exchange integration takes away one of the new iPhone's main selling points. I was actually thinking about picking up an iPhone this week and one of the main reasons was the built-in Exchange support in the iPhone 2.0 that the previous version lacked. Now I'm having second thoughts. Might stick with my Windows Mobile phone after all.