Review: iPhone corporate email a welcome app

The iPhone has long been a consumer favorite, but its usefulness to corporate America is still in doubt, due in large part to the fact that it doesn’t gel with enterprise e-mail mainstays Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Many still wonder if the iPhone can successfully be used as an enterprise smartphone at all.

Synchronica and Visto Mobile both think it can. Even before Apple’s announcement that it would release a software development kit (SDK) for iPhone third-party apps, these software developers began building their own native iPhone applications that synch back to the corporate e-mail server. The companies have both released secure corporate e-mail service applications for the iPhone and are offering free trials in the U.S. and UK. Synchronica’s was released in August, shortly after the iPhone’s launch, while Visto Mobile announced its iPhone-friendly application on Nov. 6.

After testing out the services for myself, Synchronica and Visto may have made me a believer, too. While I don’t see companies abandoning their BlackBerrys just yet, I do think the combination of the iPhone’s easy browsing experience and the ability to check corporate mail on the go will definitely give Research in Motion a run for its money. I can also understand why both Visto and Synchronica were swamped with requests for the free trial when they launched their respective services. The e-mail service works as seamlessly as my personal Gmail account, but adds the ability to open attachments, whether they are Word documents, PDFs or Excel spreadsheets.

Before I get carried away, it is important to note that we are talking about the iPhone here, so users will still have to deal with the slow speeds of the EDGE network (but we have Apple to blame for that). In order to mitigate some of the speed concerns, the services just send the headers and text of an e-mail -- much like the BlackBerry -- and selectively choose what attachments they want to open or receive. I also liked the fact that the applications completely synced up with my e-mail server, so when I sent or deleted mail on my phone, it occurred on my laptop as well and vice versa.

Both companies’ applications did not require any downloading of additional software to the computer or phone or any changes to security policies and corporate firewall settings, which our IT department would have never let me get away with anyway. For the average user, Visto’s set up was a bit more intuitive. Synchronica downloads e-mail by accessing Outlook’s Webmail interface so a few more steps are needed than for Visto’s, which required me to download a PC client that integrated with my Outlook client.

Visto’s service also allows for directory lookup in the corporate phone book via the Safari Web browser. Users can search for any contact and either place a call, send an email or get driving directions by selecting the contact’s phone number, email address or physical address.

Synchronica CEO Carsten Brinkschulte said that this kind of Safari-based lookup is just an intermediary solution, and Synchronica is waiting until February, when Apple releases its SDK, to add an application that allows a user’s corporate directory and calendar to be synchronized through SyncML with Apple’s iTunes. Brinkschulte said Synchronica’s customers, which total more than 10,000 in the U.S., are willing to wait for a solution that solves the real problem.

Having both services installed on my iPhone, I was able to compare the services at the same time. While Sychronica earned points for displaying all my folders, including subfolders in my Inbox, on the phone screen, Visto came out ahead on speed. Messages typically registered in the Visto mailbox a minute or two before Synchronica had finished downloading them.

Although Synchronica’s downloading of e-mail slowed down the process a bit, the application goes through the Microsoft Exchange URL to access push e-mail, allowing me to get my mail whether or not my computer was turned on. My biggest pet peeve with Visto Mobile’s service was that when I shut down my computer for the night, thus disconnecting from the server, I lost mobile access to my corporate email. The company said there is a way around this by delegating your connection to another computer that is always connected to the network and running as a back up, but this assumes you have that as an option.

Both companies are offering the service free for the first two months. After the trial ends, Visto will cost iPhone users $10 per month. Synchronica is not intending to offer a commercial version of its app, but provides the application to service providers who can set their own subscription fees, typically around $2 to $5 per month, Brinkschulte said.

All things considered, both services are great. They are not perfect solutions, but it’s the best companies can do for now considering Apple’s stranglehold on third-party applications for the iPhone. It’s doubtful that any IT department would find them acceptable solutions meeting their stringent security and integration requirements. Likewise, I wouldn’t expect corporations to start buying the iPhone for their executives anytime soon. But for the corporate worker bee that wants their iPhone and wants their work e-mail, too, they are both perfectly adequate work-arounds. I would definitely subscribe…as long as I could expense it back to the company.

E-mail me at sreedy@telephonyonline.com.