#ByteIT

by @mled

“How do I get email on my iPhone?” - so popular, it’s top of the intranet FAQ.

The abuse that email gets never ceases to amuse me. It’s a repository for many thousands of attachments, it’s a To Do list that others love to add items to in passive aggressive tones, and much more. We seem to crowbar in new uses for it all the time.

I hate the phone call that chases an email, probing for a response, usually seconds after the email was sent. The expectation I’ve read something instantly on my smartphone, which naturally I check multiple times per minute.

The daily commute gives me a sense of what’s typically offered by the IT teams of London’s businesses. A pairing of ThinkPad and iPhone easily dominates, it’s as though those two devices have taken residence on tables in the train’s overcrowded lead carriage.

How long before Windows Phone catches up?

At a Spiceworks meet-up before Christmas I met a proud Windows Phone user. Our conversation focused on Microsoft Office as a whole, and how the phone experience needs to mimic the desktop in a wonderfully easy-to-use way before people will move away from their iPhones.

We discussed Google’s Android, and how Google Apps had nailed it because of the tie ups with Docs and Calendar. It’s a smooth experience that’s quick to deploy and secure on both mobile and desktop.

Where Google+ is being placed at the centre of everything in a developing strategy, Microsoft has helped enterprises to keep email as the backbone to most processes.

For all its short comings with OST/PST files giving technicians everywhere a throbbing headache - Microsoft Outlook 2010 is something I rate highly. Yes, I like it.

I work with email marketers who are miserable about the decision Microsoft made to render emails with a word processor instead of a web browser. But email marketers are not the target audience. Outlook’s new direction is a response to the attachment madness - users can open and edit work from within the same window.

I only hope a similar experience is the direction that development will continue to take for mobile working.