Thread: Droid with Exchange Email? Comments?

I'm interested to see if anyone that has purchased a Droid has it up and running successfully on company email exchange servers yet....

I saw some early comments about some possible issues, but wanted to see if those had gone away....

Looking to upgrade soon to a Droid, from Storm, but I have to be able to receive business email and sync calendar without any surprises.....this would be a deal-killer for me if I can't rely on getting my email and appointments accurately....

Originally Posted by C6StingRay

I'm interested to see if anyone that has purchased a Droid has it up and running successfully on company email exchange servers yet....

I saw some early comments about some possible issues, but wanted to see if those had gone away....

Looking to upgrade soon to a Droid, from Storm, but I have to be able to receive business email and sync calendar without any surprises.....this would be a deal-killer for me if I can't rely on getting my email and appointments accurately....

you will be able to sync but the email will not be push its still a poll style email

Poll style? Like POP? Does it sync everything (Read, delete) both ways? What about responding to appointments?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by jskolm85

Poll style? Like POP? Does it sync everything (Read, delete) both ways? What about responding to appointments?

Thanks.

these questions I dont have your answers to as i have not heard or used it in this manner.... hopefully someone who has will let us both know. poll email just means instead of you getting the email when it hits the server your phone will check for new messages every 5 min

so is true push mail not possible for exchange email? I saw on one forum that if you subscribe to exchange mail in your plan that it works.....just trying to get confirmation of that........

Originally Posted by C6StingRay

so is true push mail not possible for exchange email? I saw on one forum that if you subscribe to exchange mail in your plan that it works.....just trying to get confirmation of that........

I could have sworn the only push was gmail period.. no matter what you were on

Actually, I believe the Exchange support actually uses ActiveSync; which is it's own technology. Basically, if an email comes in; the Exchange server initiates a sync; otherwise a sync can be forced by refreshing the folder. It is a form of push, but it is being pushed directly from the Exchange server. This only works if the Exchange server is configured to allow it.

And it doesn't need any special plan to work, it's controlled strictly by your organization's Exchange server, the carrier has nothing to do with it (if they blocked the specific port ActiveSync uses, it would break everything else)

thanks for the info guys...

I'm still waiting for my early upgrade offer, but when/if it does come I think I'm going to give the Droid a try and just see if it will sync properly with my enterprise server....if it doesn't I'm assuming that I can exchange for Storm2 or something else within 30 days....

my I.T. guy informed me that no one at my company has an Android phone on their network, and they are concerned with the security issues with the OS, but that I could be a guinea pig if I wanted.....guess that isn't a problem if indeed I can swap to another phone within 30 days if it doesn't work out....

I have a basic question about the whole "push" "poll" thing...

Im not a big e-mail user, imma mechanic by trade, but i do have extensive networking training, though slightly out-dated. My understanding of the "push" email, is merely that the "server" the email is received at, simply "pushes" or fwds that 'mail' to a pre-configured device. BIS (which is BLACKBERRY internet service, no?) Acts as a middleman "polling" your email from outside accounts at very small time intervals then "pushing" them fwd to our devices as if they were the original server. Since they have the servers and the bandwidth, they are able to do this quickly and efficiently, where as a device would kill a battery in an hour if it was polling every say 10-15 seconds.
This being the case(to my understanding) Would the DEVICE not be able to recieve "push" mail from any properly configured mail server?

On DROID we get "push" mail from Gmail because that is the GOOGLE servers doing the work for the GOOGLE device.
SO BACK TO MY QUESTION...
Could a user not set up an Email server on their home pc to do this "polling" and "pushing" in the same manner? Be it the user would have to leave their home PC running 24/7.

Originally Posted by Drukan

Could a user not set up an Email server on their home pc to do this "polling" and "pushing" in the same manner? Be it the user would have to leave their home PC running 24/7.

It would probably violate the TOS of most ISPs, as it's generally in their rules to not allow running a publicly accessible server (which it technically would be). Unless you paid for a business-class connection and a static IP address, it wouldn't really be doable anyways (plus you'd need to pay for a domain name).

A better bet would be to set your email accounts up to forward to Gmail, and have it pushed from there.

Originally Posted by Dave12308

It would probably violate the TOS of most ISPs, as it's generally in their rules to not allow running a publicly accessible server (which it technically would be). Unless you paid for a business-class connection and a static IP address, it wouldn't really be doable anyways (plus you'd need to pay for a domain name).

A better bet would be to set your email accounts up to forward to Gmail, and have it pushed from there.

That's how I currently have things set up.at least for my important emails

Originally Posted by Dave12308

It would probably violate the TOS of most ISPs, as it's generally in their rules to not allow running a publicly accessible server (which it technically would be). Unless you paid for a business-class connection and a static IP address, it wouldn't really be doable anyways (plus you'd need to pay for a domain name).

A better bet would be to set your email accounts up to forward to Gmail, and have it pushed from there.

see email is stopping me from switching, problem I have with this route is what if you need to reply to that email? then its kind of a hassle instead of being able to just respond there are extra steps. Some ISP's wont let you set it up to reply from gmail, or forward to gmail.

After searching various forums about the exchange email subject, I stumbled upon this thread:

Corporate Calendar - Android Forums

Gives some good info on the version of exchange server that seems to work for Droid....I'm going to run this info past my I.T. guys and see if what we have matches up....really need confirmation before I pull the trigger on a Droid...

Oh and if I've violated a ten commandment by posting a link to another forum.....I'll take my spankings from Olta....:lmao:

Originally Posted by C6StingRay

After searching various forums about the exchange email subject, I stumbled upon this thread:

Corporate Calendar - Android Forums

Gives some good info on the version of exchange server that seems to work for Droid....I'm going to run this info past my I.T. guys and see if what we have matches up....really need confirmation before I pull the trigger on a Droid...

Oh and if I've violated a ten commandment by posting a link to another forum.....I'll take my spankings from Olta....:lmao:

Olta? Stand in line LOL

Exchange is working fine for me. My company account has no issues and email is nearly instant. I haven't tried to shared calendars LOL. Also, as with most AS devices, distribution lists do not sync.

Wirelessly posted

Any issues with being able to accept meeting invitations?

Originally Posted by C6StingRay

Wirelessly posted

Any issues with being able to accept meeting invitations?

None. Nor are there any issues sending them.

Wirelessly posted

Thanks TM... I'm going to make the call today...

Okay....have had my new Droid since last Friday and all I can say is wow! Unbelievable what all this thing does and how fast it does them...

Already very happy with the onscreen landscape keyboard and have no need to even use the slider....

got connected to my corporate exchange server this morning with absolutely no problems....currently syncing email, calendar, and contacts with email being "pushed"....no delay at all....

only issues so far seem to be that I cannot accept/decline a meeting, and it cannot play a voicemail .wav file from my corporate phone system....

the later seems to be a known issue...the issue with accepting a meeting request seems to be hit and miss....

My fears of not being able to use this for daily business are gone....this thing rocks!

Originally Posted by C6StingRay

got connected to my corporate exchange server this morning with absolutely no problems....currently syncing email, calendar, and contacts with email being "pushed"....no delay at all....

Yup, email pushed instantly on mine. Just remember, subfolders are NOT push, you have to refresh them manually. I just go into my important ones and check them periodically.

Originally Posted by Dave12308

It would probably violate the TOS of most ISPs, as it's generally in their rules to not allow running a publicly accessible server (which it technically would be). Unless you paid for a business-class connection and a static IP address, it wouldn't really be doable anyways (plus you'd need to pay for a domain name).

A better bet would be to set your email accounts up to forward to Gmail, and have it pushed from there.

I'm going to go back on this statement I previously made, as this technically could be done via DynDNS and port forwarding on your router. So as long as you were the only one accessing your personal mailserver, and not using undue bandwidth; you'd be just fine.

An Exchange license is pretty expensive, though.