Setting up Push Mail for iPhone and Windows Mobile Devices

Push mail is now supported on iPhone and Windows Mobile devices using Google Sync.

Learn how to access the new features here.

Better Offline Email Access

While Google Apps Premier Edition users can integrate and access email for free on iPhone and Android devices, users may also use the Google Mobile App. Should you be without Internet connections (cell or WiFi), you now have better tools for offline email access.

As part of an update to Google's mobile client app, Gmail gets:

• An updated the user interface,
• Faster message opens
• Batch actions (like archiving multiple messages at once)
• Basic offline support

With these updates, you can still get some work done while on the subway, in a plane, or any disconnected locale.

10 Things Steve Ballmer (and Microsoft) is Thinking About

As reported by ChannelWeb, Steve Ballmer touched on many issues at Microsoft's Strategic Update Meeting in New York last week. Here is my take after reading the quotes:

1. SEARCH: Microsoft is not making money from Search and may be slowing its rate of investment
2. Microsoft is threatened by netbooks and is considering how to adjust its Windows 7 strategy to avoid loosing market share to Linux and other OS's
3. Google, with Android, and Linux threaten Microsoft's client operating system dominance
4. Microsoft denies they are creating a smartphone, but have they really accepted the "market mojo" of the iPhone and Blackberry?
5. Microsoft knows they need a lower cost server operating system -- watch for Foundation Server
6. Microsoft still sees pirated versions of Windows as the biggest threat to their OS business
7. Microsoft IE is losing market share: Ballmer admitted that "Browsers are key features of operating systems", in contrast to their answer to anti-trust concerns that IE is not part of the OS
8. Microsoft wants to R&D itself through the current economic times
9. Microsoft has not figured out how to make money with Office Live, yet; Windows Azure (server in the cloud) may be ready by November 2009
10. OpenOffice is a growing threat, starting with the educational market

In all of his comments, Ballmer seems to be missing the gap between the features Microsoft deliver and the subset of those features most customers actually use. If the threats he acknowledges offer simpler feature sets, but meet most customers' needs, Microsoft could be in big trouble.

Verdict Out on ActiveSync and Google

In "Google Time", the availability of ActiveSync for calendar and contact synchronization with iPhone, Windows Mobile, and other PDA's is old news (announced on 09-Feb-2009).

Currently, the team at Horizon is prepping our contacts and calendars so that we can fully test the new features.

The big caveat is that starting up ActiveSync replaces all Calendar and Contact entries. As we juggle multiple calendar and contact lists, we are "cleaning things up" before we test.

I will post again in a few weeks with the results. In the meantime, feel free to share your experiences with ActiveSync and Google Apps Premier Edition