iPhone in the enterprise: An interview with Microsoft's Exchange group

It certainly came as a bit of a surprise when Apple announced that it had licensed Activesync from Microsoft and was bringing full Exchange Server support to the iPhone [1]. After all, Apple had marketed the device almost exclusively to consumers since its release and had ignored repeated requests from users for corporate email support. So why now? And does the iPhone really stand a chance against entrenched enterprise players like Microsoft, RIM and Palm?

To find out the answers to these questions, we went not to the notoriously tight-lipped folks at Apple but to Microsoft, Apple’s unlikely partner for the iPhone’s enterprise push. In an interview with Adam Glick, Technical Product Manager for Microsoft’s Exchange group, we found out why IT admins should be excited about the iPhone, how this move characterizes Microsoft’s approach to licensing its technology and why Microsoft is helping a competitor gain a foothold in its most cherished market.

TechWatch: How did the partnership between Apple and Microsoft come about?

Adam Glick: From our standpoint it was always a partnership—it was really the two companies coming together, asking ‘Does this partnership make sense for us?’” Really they’re the ultimate player to sign on in terms of smartphone manufacturers and this really highlights that this is the premiere messaging solution for enterprises. We started working with them a while ago and eventually, we both found the right partnership. We’re thrilled that this is finally being announced.

TW: Why did Apple choose to bring Exchange support to the iPhone now? It seems like iPhone users have been asking for Exchange compatibility since day one…

AG: That’s probably a question best left for Apple to answer. We’ve obviously been talking to them for a good while—it seems like they came up with a consumer strategy initially and now they’re looking to shift up into the enterprise.

TW: How will a more enterprise-centric iPhone affect the overall smartphone landscape, especially with regard to Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile platform?

AG: Whether or not [the iPhone] will be picked up as a strong enterprise class device remains to be seen. Whether it will become a force in enterprise messaging like Windows Mobile also remains to be seen. Windows Mobile still has the fullest implementation of Activesnyc on the market but that isn’t going to keep us from licensing that technology to other device manufacturers. I think that this really says a lot about Microsoft’s commitment to standards. We obviously feel that Windows Mobile is a premium enterprise experience but if people want to experience Exchange on another device then we want to give them that choice.

TW: But the fact that Apple is now marketing the iPhone to the enterprise—that makes them a direct competitor of Windows Mobile, does it not?

AG: When you’re a company as big as Microsoft, you’re invariably going to have people who are your partner in some areas and a competitor in others. I think that’s a healthy environment—that’s just good capitalism.

TW: What kind of businesses do you think will be the first to deploy the iPhone as an enterprise device? I’ve been hearing a lot of folks saying that SMBs might be the first segment of the enterprise population to really consider the iPhone as a business-class device.

AG: My view is that the iPhone is a premium price device and that some people might think that it strikes the right balance for them. It’s probably less likely in the SMB market but it’s more likely there that people will bring in their own device into the workplace and will tell the IT department “I want it to connect.’” I think that in those spaces, the question is how do we make sure we have the right back-end software that can support whatever is brought into the workplace. And unlike something like a RIM device where you’re locked in, this is open for you to take wherever you want, so you’ve got this wide array of devices that your workers can bring in.

TW: How will admins exercise control over the personal devices that are brought into their organization? I know that a lot of IT departments are a little uneasy with the idea of iPhones in the workplace…

AG: One of the things that’s very important about Activesync, from an admin perspective, is the ability for the admin to make the final decision. We’ve built in controls for admins in Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 to give people really granular control—admins can make the choice for which devices they’re going to allow and what policies they want to be respected. An IT department can decide that if a device doesn’t support certain policies, it won’t be allowed to sync. On the software side, we make sure that admins have full control of their network and what devices attach to it.

TW: I know that this announcement came as a surprise to a lot of people. Does Microsoft have any other partnerships in the works to bring Exchange support to a wider range of devices?

AG: I work in Unified Communications here at Microsoft, so I can’t speak to what the Server or SQL group might do—so I’ll limit my comments to Unified Communications. When we talk about Unified Communications, Exchange has always had an open licensing policy—we’ve been very open with what we make available to people. If you take a look at what we’re doing with Office, we’ve taken a very open view and we’re licensing all of that technology. Obviously it’s important to be fairly compensated for our intellectual property but we’re not locking anything down. We feel like we’ve created great technology and we want people to take advantage of that—we’re actively looking to extend these things and make them available.

The fact of the matter is that we’ve been doing this for a while. There was a big announcement [a few weeks ago] about these sorts of ideas becoming Microsoft-wide but there have been parts of Microsoft that have always operated this way. In the Unified Communications group, for example, we’ve had a very open environment in terms of licensing our technology and making it available to people.