In the corporate world most organizations have a pretty clear definition of what devices are allowed to communicate directly to their Exchange servers.  Usually this is limited entirely to devices that the company provides.  From a support perspective this makes life easy, but is clearly unpopular.  In Church IT, as in Small Business, this is very unlikely to be the case.  Most mobile devices are owned by individuals, even if they are required to do one’s job.

Solerant has recommended for years that it’s customers limit mobile devices to those that can access over Activesync or use Blackberry devices with a Blackberry Enterprise Server so that users can have full sync’ing capability.  While some organizations chose to use Blackberry or other devices without a BES, those devices were capable of obtaining their mail through OWA.  We intentionally avoided enabling/opening POP3 due to negative experiences with supporting POP3 as well as the security uncertainty it brings.  While we did enable and open IMAP in organizations with Mac users, we did not often use this for mobile devices.

This policy of support was received well by the majority of our customers because, in general, most people had no desire to carry a device around with their email on it.  When the original iPhone launched we had a sudden increase in users that wanted to be connected.  As organizations requested it we set up IMAP w/SSL and alternative SMTP submit ports for them to use with their new gadgets.  While this created some severe support headaches for a while from users that expected full wireless sync comparable to the Blackberry or Treo they just tossed aside, it waned pretty much immediately as users really only needed to send/receive email to be happy.

With the upcoming release of the iPhone Firmware 2.0 as well as the iPhone 3G full Activesync is being brought to the table.  Many organizations may be faced with implementing Activesync for the first time to support their users, while many others may have to prepare for a sudden onslaught of requests to switch to iPhones instead of their aging Windows Mobile, Palm, or Blackberry devices.  This may be significantly compounded by the more affordable pricing of the 3G iPhone.

How will this affect your individual churches?  I have some examples below and I would love to hear some feedback from others on this topic.

  • User/executive demand to implement Microsoft Exchange or an alternative that supports Activesync in organizations that have otherwise not had it to date.
  • Pressure to standardize on the iPhone 3G as a mobile device of choice.
  • Increased mobile device support demands on IT Staff due to the influx of personal iPhones into the organization from people who would have never otherwise needed/wanted mobile email.

Thoughts?