We're swapping networks to O2 soon and I'll be getting a pile of iPhones to distribute to the staff.

There's a nice iPhone configuration utility which lets you generate a profile which can be loaded onto the handsets to setup email and so on. This all looks nice and straightforward but I was wondering if anyone had done this themselves and if it all worked according to plan or went totally to ****?

Setting up email is straight forward even 'hotmail' address now.I currently have works 'AOL' and hotmail/googlemail accounts set up which are updated every 15mins.

But can the piephones be locked down?

I would think long and hard about your requirements for exchange and iphones.. having activesync switched on will drain the batt very quickly (in a day on my 2g one) plus only the inbox can be pushed. nowhere near as flexible as a ms device.

They looked at it here, but decided on Blackberries, due to security concerns as well as ease of management and configuration.

It seemed to be that they weren't particularly well designed as a business device, especially from a support/config PoV.

Steve

But can the piephones be locked down?

I would think long and hard about your requirements for exchange and iphones.. having activesync switched on will drain the batt very quickly (in a day on my 2g one) plus only the inbox can be pushed. nowhere near as flexible as a ms device.

That side of the decision was made without me, though I'm not all that impressed with a lot of the WM handsets I've seen and we did get a good deal on these. I think the very slick iPhone interface won out over outright flexibility.

I've got the car chargers on order expecting poor battery performance.

They looked at it here, but decided on Blackberries, due to security concerns as well as ease of management and configuration.

It seemed to be that they weren't particularly well designed as a business device, especially from a support/config PoV.

Steve

Until the new 3.0 update comes along in a couple of months that is – just in time for my current contract to run out, and a new one to be taken up.

Hmmm, shiny, shiny, iPhone

I suppose another consideration is what OS you're used to on your computer. If you're used to Windows then Blackberry is probably going to be easier.

But if you use Macs at work, and I have done for the last 12 years, then anything Mac is going to be the way forward.

3.0 shouldn't be far away , though nobody knows which of the rumours about the new features are actually true.

The Worldwide Developers Conference by Apple starts today at 6pm BST. They will be announcing what is actually happening with the new iPhones at some point this week, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I would think long and hard about your requirements for exchange and iphones.. having activesync switched on will drain the batt very quickly (in a day on my 2g one) plus only the inbox can be pushed. nowhere near as flexible as a ms device.

Mine lasts about 2 days with push enabled.

We support windows mobile devices and I can say the iPhone is literally in another league in terms of gui and ease of use.

iPhone lacks a couple of features though, you can pull additional folders down. I don't see a massive issue with this though as the majority of users will user rules in Outlook to direct new emails into particular folders. If outlook isn't open the emails will simply sit in the inbox until the rule is run.

I've found the iPhones battery lasts longer than the HTC phones we have in as well, probably because users spend twice as long doing the same task...

Does look like OS3 will enhance the features quite a bit for business users

i just wish they would hurry up and announce the new iphone, not interested in v3.0 software, just a better quality iphone.

i just wish they would hurry up and announce the new iphone, not interested in v3.0 software, just a better quality iphone.

They have done!

From what I read the exchange interface is still ropey and not as secure as WM5/6 devices or symbian.

They are working on it, but I'm sure I read somewhere of some rogue apps that could recover your passwords and server details and give them to the user or a 3rd party quite easily.

And unlike WM devices and blackberrys, you cant (currently) lock them down.

It's release on 19th June

From what I read the exchange interface is still ropey and not as secure as WM5/6 devices or symbian.

They are working on it, but I'm sure I read somewhere of some rogue apps that could recover your passwords and server details and give them to the user or a 3rd party quite easily.

And unlike WM devices and blackberrys, you cant (currently) lock them down.

Hmm, don't quote me on this- but i'm fairly sure you can remote wipe and enforce password security from exchange on the iPhones same as WM.

Hmm, don't quote me on this- but i'm fairly sure you can remote wipe and enforce password security from exchange on the iPhones same as WM.

You can indeed do just that.

I've got a demo handset to play with at the mo.

Should anyone care , I've got most of it working as I'd like.

There's a nice configuration utility to generate profiles containing all the Security , Exchange Email , Wireless networking and Cisco VPN settings. You can export this and host it on the net somewhere then it's just a case of browsing to this on a new handset and importing it. The users just have to enter their own email address and password to finish the setup.

There's a bug in the PC version of this software that stops the exchange side working - you can manually edit the profile in wordpad to fix this though.

Other than that it's relatively straightforward - I can also load digital certificates onto the handsets for secure wireless networks using EAP-TLS

Sounds good

Steve