I admit it – prior to joining Microsoft, I was a Blackberry RIM user back at the old employer.  In fact, I had personally purchased my own device way back when after they introduced the larger 957 version here in Canada. Why was I using RIM? I needed access to my email remotely while on the road when I was unable to get on the internet in order to use Outlook Web Access or establish a VPN for email.  Yup – I was addicted – like most early BlackBerry users were. I even worked on a couple of Exchange projects where I implemented BlackBerry Enterprise Servers for some customer deployments.

Please Note – this was all PRIOR to the release of Outlook 2003 with Exchange 2003 and RPC over HTTPs access to email and PRIOR to the general availability of SmartPhone based devices that used Windows Mobile 2003 here in Canada.

I’ve been traveling a lot to the states for various Microsoft conferences and events over the last month or so and met with a number of individuals on the Windows Mobile team. The events have a large international audience who carry a variety of the latest and greatest mobile smart phones. I’ve looked enviously at them when I had to place a call with my Nokia “dumb” phone. Why do I carry a Nokia phone?  I joined MS Canada when there were no viable options for smart phones available to the general population.  This has finally changed - I participated in the Canadian national Mobility tour a while back after the launch of smart phones in Canada from virtually all the mobile carriers. I can’t wait to get my hands on some of the new devices. 

So where are we now? What’s our remote email push technology solution? How can you and I get my remote email fix?  What do you have to do to prepare your environment for these technologies? How much additional $$$ do I have to spend to do this?

To keep it simple:

  1. Implement / Upgrade to Exchange 2003
  2. Purchase a Windows Mobile 2003 device that is upgradeable to Windows Mobile 5
  3. Implement Exchange Service Pack 2 with Messaging & Security Feature Pack

Want some additional details? Humm… I sense a BlogPost series developing here – stay tuned!  Want to suggest some content or have questions? Post a comment!