Mobile e-mail and communication have become a way of life for most businesses and employees. With this, IT administrators have to balance access to their messaging systems with the seemingly contradictory task of protecting that same data from mobile device loss or theft.
In Exchange Server 2010, mobile users can access their messages from a truly universal inbox with Short Message Service (SMS) text messages, e-mail, voice mail, and saved instant message (IM) conversations.
IT administrators can control the devices that connect to their network though a block/allow list. This list ensures that only approved devices are connecting to the messaging data while still offering a wide array of Exchange ActiveSync® enabled devices.
The best part of mobile access in Exchange Server 2010 is that it is all built into Exchange. There is no need to buy extra servers and client access licenses (CALs) from third-party providers or manage another, separate system for mobile access.
Functional Descriptions
Conversation View: the new conversation view quickly and easily enables users to identify the most recent messages and, the series of responses. Conversation view is always preserved, even if individual e-mail messages are located in different folders in the mailbox. By treating multiple messages as a single conversation it can be managed, ignored, moved, and deleted as a whole vs. having to address each e-mail individually. New messages to old conversations will automatically be placed in the folder to which you have directed the conversation, even if you have deleted or ignored a conversation.
Free/Busy Lookup: Exchange ActiveSync now enables users to look at a contact's calendar availability. Right from a user's contact information, a free/busy timeline show users when their contacts are available for a call or meeting.
Nickname Cache: By storing the e-mail addresses of recent recipients, the Nickname Cache helps users address e-mail more quickly by providing a suggested name list as a new address is typed. This automatically populated list narrows itself as the user types more letters of the recipient's name and is a combined cache of recent recipients of e-mail sent from Outlook Web App and Outlook Mobile.
SMS Sync: Exchange ActiveSync now provides the ability to send and receive SMS text messages from Outlook and Outlook Web App. Incoming messages, sent via EAS to the user's mobile device, can be seen both in the usual SMS message location and the e-mail inbox.
Reply State: The icon update helps answer the question, "Did I handle that e-mail yet?" Now you can see if you replied to or forwarded an e-mail just by looking at the icon on the device, even if you replied from Outlook.
Installable client: Upgrading your e-mail functionality no longer requires you to update your phones. All the latest features of Exchange Server are available to any mobile device that has Windows Mobile 6.1 or later. Users of Exchange Server can download an update to Outlook Mobile so that their existing devices can take advantage of all the benefits in the latest version of Exchange ActiveSync.
