Motorola Q Phone Email Question

[High_Jumbllama]

Boss has a new Motorola Q cell phone. He want to be able to read and respond to his email on the phone. He also wants the phone to sync.

I set up the phone to sync but emails cannot be sent unless the phone syncs back up to his PC and a Send/Receive event is triggered on the host PC.

Is this how it is supposed to behave on this phone or in general? I cannot get the phone to send email through the included Outlook program.

I can get it to send and receive directly through POP3 but then the sent items do not appear in Outlook and and items already in the PC's Outlook cannot be responded to in the POP3.

Any ideas? I fear the boss wants a capability that the phone for some stupid reason does not have.

[Wombat]

Sounds like your boss wanted a Blackberry.

[Jammrock]

Since it uses Windows Mobile 5.0, you will need to have the Exchange administrator setup "Exchange ActiveSync" for his account, and then set it up on the Q. This means that your company will also need a URL that the Q can communicate with the exchange server via the internet, typically done via ISA, but can be done with other firewall/proxy apps if you know the right ports.

You can also setup Microsoft DirectPush, which allows immediate update of email on the phone as they arrive in the inbox.

Have fun setting it up! I can walk you through the phone portion of it, but good luck with the Exchange end. The initial setup on the exchange end is as easy as checking a box in Exchanges user config tool (assuming ActiveSync has been setup in Exchange). From there you need, if not already setup, the internet portal to communicate through ("RPC over HTTP" is what I beleive ActiveSync uses to authenticate with Exchange over the net). From there the phone part is easy as can be.

Here are some fun reads about the entire mess for you:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=833401

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/actsyncfaq.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/articles/directpush.mspx

Jammrock

[Taz]

Where is his email being held?

[High_Jumbllama]

Where is his email being held?

Unfortunately not on an exchange server. It is some flavor of *nix. He simply bought the phone with no idea if it worked as he wanted it to with what we have.

Now how to explain this to him.

Me: It will not work with our email server.
Him: Why not?
Me: It needs a Microsoft Exchange 2003 server. Our's is something different.
Him: Why don't we have that?
Me What I want to say: You don't want to pay any money that you do not have to.
Me What I would say: You wanted to use our current service and this was not a concern.
Him maybe: Make my phone do that.
Me: It cannot do that. :bangs head for the tenth time trying to explain this.:

[lowlifecat]

Sounds like your boss wanted a Blackberry.

x2

simplest solution would be to get a BB and install the BB Desktop Redirector on his (duh) desktop. Anything that show ups in his inbox will show up on his BB (eventually, takes 3-17mins to syncronize).

pros: it works
cons: you have to leave your computer up and running and connected to your email server.

better solution would be BES, Blackberry Enterprise Server. You can plug it into exchange and other email servers. again, what ever comes into your inbox will pop up in your blackberry.

pros: fast, i've seen examples where email will show up on the BB before you see it in outlook inbox. supports Exchange, Domino and GroupWise.
cons: not really sure.

here a link with more info

http://www.blackberry.com/products/software/serverupdate.shtml

edit: forgot to mention BB Internet Service which is compatible with POP3, IMAP4, OWA and some others.

[Jammrock]

The Blackberries are really only an option if he's had his phone for less than 14-days and can exhcange it. Otherwise he's be dumping a lot of cash unless the store will exchange it past the 14-day return window.

Also, if he uses the redirect client it will not update from phone to calendar/email/contacts until he cradles and syncs. Since that was a requirement, it wouldn't work.

So change systems to Exhcange, or see if the BES will work with your client. Pretty much the only options.

Jammrock

[lowlifecat]

jam> last time i checked (about 6 months ago) email synced wirelessly (BES and BIS). the redirector is basicly BES light that connects to your email server via your outlook/eudura whatever profile, transmits data to RIM via internet which then forwards info to carrier. also backwards through the chain.

I haven't done BB 1st/2nd level support in 6 months, but my old co-workers have told me that (at least on the enterprise level) everything syncs wirelessly now.

edit: at 1 point I had 5 email accounts on my BB. @Hotmail(BIS), @Gmail(pop3 via BIS), @HP (redirect), @MCI(BES) and finally @*.blackberry(BIS). I currently only have hotmail, gmail and blackberry. I haven't synced this thing in months.

for BIS emails sent from the BB are sent via @carrier.blackberry.net email account (can be changed to show different addy) and thus do not show up in sent items.

for BES (and redirect) sent items are transmitted back to desktop client or BES and sent via your email server.

[High_Jumbllama]

He wants this all to work from within the Outlook client in the phone. That client has no settings for sending or receiving anything. There are the settings to connect to I believe Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 not in Outlook which I believe might do something but as indicated above that is not possible and it has been over 15 days as it took him over a week to remember to bring in the usb adapter. The logitech keyboard combos that were thought to be bluetooth, I had to prove were not. That was another connection method.

[lowlifecat]

it's simple.

blackberries are outlook

[Jammrock]

The outlook client can connect using a host of methods. If you were using Exchange 2003 to sync you would go into Start -> Programs -> ActiveSync to setup the phone. Otherwise you launch the email client and go to Menu -> Tools -> New Account for standard POP stuff.

If your boss had a BB, then the redirector would work directly with outlook on the host system.

lowlifecat: That's good to know. I never worked with blackberries much until the merger, but since we have BES attached to our Exchange servers I haven't needed to use the redirect in over two years (one VP used a BB when traveling to Europe, and that's the only time I have ever installed the redirect client).

[High_Jumbllama]

What I do not understand is that when sending via POP3 why does it not show up in the Outbox and then the Sent Items Outlook folders. The POP3 account(s) have their own folders for this. To me this would be a no-brainer.

[Taz]

Do you know if your mail server supports IMAP?

[High_Jumbllama]

I believe so.

[Taz]

What happens when you use that?