While the rest of the world was fretting over the antenna issues in the iPhone 4 or complaining about battery life, IT professionals managing Microsoft Exchange servers with iOS4 users have been busy with something else altogether.

Bugs in the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) implementation in iOS4 were resulting in significant artificial loads on Exchange servers that they are connected to for push email. As outlined by the Microsoft Exchange Team blog, another symptom of the problem involves email, calendar or contact entries not synching properly.

One trigger identified for the problem has to do with the timeout period when connecting to Exchange in the iOS4, which has been set to just 30 seconds. Another more serious repercussion has to do with how iOS4 sends out new requests without first properly tearing down the initial network connection. This exhausts a server's resources and affects service to other Exchange users.

A temporary patch has been released that mitigates some of the issues, though Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) did not divulge when a full update will be released. Adam Glick, senior technical product manager at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), confirmed this news in a blog post, "Apple has assured us that a fix is being worked on, though they have not commented on a release timeline for the fix."

The issue though, appears to be serious enough that Intermedia, the largest hosted Exchange provider in the world, has sent out an email outlining the above issues with iOS4 to its customers. Urging iOS4 users to install the temporary fix, the seriousness of this problem was underscored when Intermedia went on to warn users that it may disable the ActiveSync service of users in order to maintain overall service quality.

The entire issue is not so much about the presence of a bug versus how Apple handles testing and rectification of problems on the enterprise front. In my opinion, the current situation does not bode well for organizations attempting to support Apple in the enterprise. I have more to say about this in today's editorial, do check it out.

For more on this story:
- check out the article at The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog
- check out the article at Computerworld
- check out the article at Exchangepedia

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