“Cisco subsidiary WebEx wants to help executives empty their coat pockets and shed unwanted phones. On Aug. 29, the company will give corporate users a way to access Outlook e-mail via their iPhones with its PCNow service. In March, WebEx began offering PCNow as a way to remotely access computer documents, e-mail, and calendars via mobile devices. The service is now available for the iPhone and will let workers access e-mail, contacts, and files on their PCs. WebEx is offering a free one-month trial, and then the service costs $12.95 per month for one PC, with discounts for those who buy in volume or sign up for an annual contract,” Rachael King reports for BusinessWeek.
“WebEx joins a growing number of companies that have announced or demonstrated services to help iPhone users connect to corporate e-mail since the new smartphone was launched in June. Those companies include Visto, Synchronica, Funambol, and Sybase (SY). On August 2, Synchronica began offering a 60-day free trial of its Mobile Gateway 3.0 service that provides mobile synchronization between Microsoft Exchange and Apple’s iPhone. Visto will begin a free trial of its service late in the third quarter of 2007. On Aug. 7, Sybase demonstrated the use of one of its iAnywhere products to sign into corporate e-mail, calendars, and address books at its user conference in Las Vegas but has not announced a product,” King reports.
“In fact, workers at large companies have devised their own means of using the iPhone for corporate e-mail, such as automatically forwarding corporate e-mail to Web-mail accounts, such as that offered by Yahoo! (YHOO), and using their iPhones to check the Web-mail account. IT administrators frown on such tactics. Some companies have explicit policies forbidding corporate e-mail access on the iPhone but have quietly implemented the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) standard so that some workers can use their iPhones. And some people are charging ahead with third-party solutions under the radar of the IT department,” King reports.
Full article here.
Maybe this was the cooperation they talked about. This sounds like a win for everyone.
~M
Just ditch Exchange! It sucks ass!
Does the iPhone work with a stylus? Or do you have to use a finger?
If one can use a stylus, then the app possiblity on the iPhone is endless. Meaning office type apps.
Uh oh, I just had a revelation. Perhaps Numbers was released arround the same time as the iPhone for a purpose?
*hears chairs being thrown in Redmond*
@Glossy = eventual CVS
here you go…
http://tapright.igiki.com/iPhone_Stylus_TapRight.html
Like I said many moons ago, the synergy between Apple & Cisco would soon stitch up the gaps between mobile, computing & landline telephony into one solid hegemony!
Don’t get too excited… Just got news that PCNow doesn’t support Mac OSX… Just Windows Remote Access…. I thought Apple said they were planning a Remote Desktop Client for the iPhone??? Just another rumor…
I think this is great news and would pursue this or a similar solution if need be. Luckily, in my work environment, we have a pretty robust web component for the Exchange/Outlook services that was originally set up for our remote laptop users.
How about allowing corporate accounts for the iPhone!
I think we are going to see a lot of iPhone integration in Leopard.
Okay, I have already signed up for this, and actually have access to the My Documents folder on my work PC desktop. Unfortunately, this is really just another kind of web access for your Outlook mail, but it is easier to use than OWA. I had already used OWA on my iPhone, but the interface was difficult. The PCNow interface is pretty simple. It’s email use is reliable, and setup was pretty simple. So far, it has not correctly synced up my corporate calendar. But I already use Entourage to get my corporate calendar into my iPhone. PCNow has the advantage of not requiring a sync in order to be up to date, if the calendar sync ever works. Promising, but no Blackberry replacement.
Quite possible that this is one of the things discussed between Apple and Cisco as part of the “iPhone” Name deal.