I just finished installing the latest version of on 2 Nokia phones I am borrowing. If you are not familar with it Mail for Exchange is a licensed version of Activesync that allows you to access the e-mail, calendar, contacts (address book), and tasks of your Microsoft Exchange account on your Nokia phone, mainly N series phones. I have to say I would have thought the installation experience and setup would have been easier, since it is basically using some the the technology from Intellisync, which with previous S60 devices and even some older devices worked well with mail. This install was easier to do than the previous version. There are basically four steps to get started:
- 1. Install (I just copied over the SISX file over to my storage card on my phone and installed it through the File Manager and then start up Mail for Exchange on your Nokia phone.
- 2. Next you create a synchronization profile that controls what and when you synchronize, I set mine to Always On you can also set a timing interval you setup when to check for new mail.
- 3. Next you Synchronize to get all of your e-mail, calendar, contact, and task entries on your mobile device from your account
on the Exchange server. - 4. After it syncs you are ready to use and interact with all the email, calendar, contact, and task info on your device and your Exchange server with any changes you add, edit or delete will be replicated on your Exchange server.
The cool thing is that the Mail for Exchange includes the Company Directory application. The Company Directory sis file is for those that only want GAL lookup functionality and not full PIM synchronization capabilities. The only caveat I have found is that it’s not the same experience as it is on Windows Mobile since all Nokia devices don’t support the security features that many(if not all) network administrators enforce, which prevents Mail for Exchange from synchronizing data to your phone. I found I was having this problem by looking at the File manager > MailForExchange > admin_log.txt file and found this error:
“This device is unable to implement all requested password policies.”
Sniffing around the interweb the only solution I could find for this was to reduce the server security requirements. Yeah right, like that is going to happen! If Nokia and Apple are going to implement Exchange Activesync they should implement the security that goes along with it or people are going to get burned. I wonder if the same will happen to those using the iPhone 2.0 and Exchange
Other issues I had was opening attachements which required QuickOffice if you didn’t already have it on the device.
Overall not bad if you have a Nokia phone and need access to your Exchange Server, but its not as good as a solution proved by BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
Written by Steven Hughes - Visit Website
