AT&T to offer iPhone to business accounts on Jan 21
updated 02:55 pm EST, Thu January 17, 2008
iPhone & business accounts
AT&T will soon announce the acceptance of iPhones under corporate and business accounts, an anonymous source claims. The announcement is expected to happen on January 21st, and already has some rumored details: among these is the continuity of corporate discounts, which may serve to lure in a number of customers. There may however be some restrictions, such as having a data plan at or above $25 a month. It is also said that there will be no equipment discounts, and buyers will have to run through a pre-activation process before the normal one in iTunes.
If true, the announcement may help ease the iPhone into business circles, where it has met fading resistance since launch. Initial concerns revolved around the security of the device, but the major obstacle is now seen to be compatibility with Microsoft's dominant mail technology, namely Exchange Server and Outlook. Aside from being used by many corporations, Exchange is also capable of delivering "push" e-mail, meaning its users do not have to check for messages manually. [via Boy Genius Report]
"Push" Email
01/17, 04:14pm reply
I've never understood the cachet of "push" email. It's less than trivial to set your Mail client to check your email every 15 minutes automatically. I'm not a stock broker, so 15 minutes is quite often enough for me.
I dare say there are few jobs where one's livelihood depends on replying to an email within 15 minutes.
pdmarsh
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2000
multiple accounts
01/17, 04:38pm reply
pdmarsh, the reason IMAP ("push" e-mail) is so great is the fact that you can use it with multiple e-mail clients, and everything stays in sync. Your iPhone client knows that you've just read a new message on your Macbook and adjusts accordingly. Same thing with e-mail deletion. For people who need constant e-mail access and from multiple points of entry, IMAP is far superior.
petsounds
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2007
Finally
01/17, 04:45pm reply
I've been paying for my iPhone account personally since it launched in June. That's $80/mo that should be on the company account but AT&T won't let them set it up like that.
As far as push email, that's necessary, but another corporate necessity the iPhone is lacking is the ability to remotely erase and disable the device, should the user lose it.
jasonsRX7
Mac Elite
Joined: Jul 2003
Re: multiple accounts
01/17, 05:05pm reply
pdmarsh, Push mail is not IMAP.
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
IMAP
01/17, 05:50pm reply
I think IMAP is web based email access.... like checking my e-mails at Yahoo website.
coffeetime
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2006
push is a subset of imap
01/17, 06:16pm reply
All IMAP accounts maintain status of messages across all mail clients. So regardless of if you have push, if you account is IMAP then your phone, computer, blackberry, other computer all know if you have read an email or not.
PUSH is a technology that some IMAP accounts have that tells the client that you have a new email without having the client checking on the server to find out. So it creates a real time experience for the user to respond to emails as soon as they are sent.
To get really technical(and theoretical), it involves the use of an "agent" since a server by nature does not send out data unless it is asked for it, an agent runs as a 3rd party between the client and server and keeps the heartbeat between the two constantly updated.
maybesew
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2007
Big Deal
01/18, 08:13am reply
I have a .Mac account using iMap and I have two POP Accounts and I cannot get Mail Synchronization to work right. So what's up with the "push" email? What makes them think they are going to get it right?
Tanker10a
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2003