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03/30/2006: "Push Marketing"

I spent some of yesterday (it should have been all) at a Microsoft Technet event entitled "The Mobile Opportunity: Are you missing it?". I went to see what Microsoft are up to and whether there is anything in their offering thatwe should be taking a closer look at.

The first session was all about their new push email capability and boy did they labour it. We got lots of demos of the push capabilities and the security options. We also got lots of unnecessary BlackBerry bashing. Rubbishing the competition does not do it for me as it makes me think that there is something being hidden.

In this case MS does seem to have many of the bells and whistles that are required but... You need to move to Exchange 2003 SP2, not an inconsiderable undertaking. Your devices need to be running Windows Mobile 5 AKU 2. I have a recent iMate SP5m which is WM5 but does not have AKU2. I could add it but it has only just been released I want someone else to iron out the bugs.

And that's my main reason for shying away from Microsoft push email at this time. When our business needed it two years ago BlackBerry was available and Microsoft's offering was not. Now two years on RIM have continued to release new versions and updates and is solid as a rock. When MS gets to that stage, then I'll take a look.