iPhone’s ActiveSync not quite as active as you’d expect?

Does anyone else have the problem of their iPhone not always syncing changes between itself and Exchange? 

I’ve noticed that the mailbox on my iPhone doesn’t always pick up on changes that I might make on my Outlook client or Webmail.  So for example at the moment my iPhone is showing 10 new meeting invitations that I have already accepted and replied to.  I’ve also just had to re-read 14 emails to stop them being highlighted as unread.

It seems an odd problem to me… but a few people here have found the same.  I thought I would see if anyone else had noticed this (it could be our instance of exchange?)

Will Mesh kick start Information Rights Management?

I’m a big fan of Live Mesh.  I’ve been using it pretty much since it launched a few months ago and have a few folders which I keep synchronised between my various computers.  It’s one of those things that you don’t realise you need until you have it… and then start using a computer without it.  I find it invaluable, especially now the Mac client is out.

Now whilst I’m aware that Mesh is much more than the simple file synchronisation stuff that’s included in the client, over the past few week it this that has had me thinking about it’s implications.

Most of the folders that I sync in my Mesh are personal – favourites, a few pictures, maybe a tune or two.  But the other week I had a huge amount of reading to do for a project so  I decided that I’d leave the office early and do the reading at home.  Rather than pick up my laptop I just moved the docs into a Meshed folder then went home knowing that the docs would be at home long before I was. 

It’s this simplicity that I think could cause businesses a headache.   It’s never been so easy to send documents to multiple computers – including a cloud desktop – than with Mesh.  Just by saving a document in a Meshed folder on my laptop I send it to three other PC’s and a Mac.  On my folders only I have access, but I could potentially be sharing that information with anyone.

Now as a user I find this very useful, but as an enterprise IT guy it’s kinda scary.  Whilst you’ve always been able email documents home, or use a USB stick to carry documents, Mesh takes this to a whole new level.  As a business I no longer have control over where my information goes or who can access it – my workers now control this.  Hopefully they’ll be responsible and make the right decisions… but all the recent news stories about data loss would suggest that isn’t always the case.

I suppose we could be draconian and just stop people using tools like Mesh, but in truth if it’s not Mesh, it’ll be email or some other media that will catch us out.  If you can’t fully control where your information is going, perhaps your best bet is to protect the information itself.

That’s where Information Rights Management may be useful.  It’s been around as a concept and a product for years, but in my experience it’s always had a limited uptake.  In a world where information and data is flowing beyond the reach of traditional network boundaries IRM and other de-perimeterisation solutions may soon become a necessity.

‘Geneva’ Identity in the Cloud

One of the more interesting things to come out of the recent PDC conference (for me at least) was the work MS has been doing around identity in the cloud.  It’s always looked like a bit of a stumbling block for the adoption of cloud services, especially for enterprises where simple user interfaces and single sign-on have been a focus for years.

The main points that I picked up on were:

Identity

The Microsoft Federation Gateway – provides an identity and federation gateway into MS provided/hosted services including Azure and Live ID.

The Microsoft Services Connector – allows you to federate your Active Directory with MS to gain access to services hosted in their cloud. 

‘Geneva’ Server – a standards based Security Token Service that allows federation between your AD and any other claims based service (including the MS hosted services)

Live ID and Open ID – Live will become an Open ID provider allowing the 400 million Live ID’s to use Open ID sites and visa versa.

Those are massive simplifications of course. 

Brought together these services and solutions could make life much easier for a lot of people.

– As an Enterprise we would be able to provide services from an Azure platform without any worry about authentication or identity.  Whether that be hosted Exchange, SharePoint, or just some internally developed apps the existing AD and it’s accounts can be used.

– ISV’s can provide solutions knowing that they’ll never have to worry about managing accounts and passwords for people.   No need to worry about password resets – the customer will deal with that for you.  Selling a license to a company?  No need to worry about employees leaving and still having access – the customer will remove their accounts anyway (well it depends who they are selling to I guess, but you get the idea). 

– As an end user my work username and password will get me seamless access to my work systems, and my personal ID (whether LiveID or OpenID) will work on more sites, so less accounts and passwords to remember.

I’ve just been watching this session on the ‘Identity Roadmap for Software + Services‘ over on the PDC site.  It gives are really good overview of what’s being planned and demo’s some scenarios where these new services might help.  It’s well worth a look.

iPhones in the Mesh

I’ve been using Mesh on my PC’s for a while now, it’s hard to say just how useful it it having my documents and files available where ever I am.  It’s one of those things that you don’t realise you need until you have it!

With the release of the Mac and Windows Mobile CTP’s this week, I’ve been thinking a bit more about how to use Mesh more.  One obvious gap is my iPhone.  It’s a device that I carry with me more or less everywhere, but the one device I can’t use with Mesh.

It wasn’t until I watched the Mesh on Mac video over on on10 over lunch that I thought about using the mesh mobile interface that’s available on m.mesh.com.  Having tried it out I have to say that it works really well. 

From the mobile site you can access all of the folders and content that you have synced with your Mesh Desktop.  You can also read all of the associated news and updates and manage the membership of those folders. 

The iPhone will open and render many of the typical doc types (Images, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF etc), but won’t unfortunately let you open and listen to MP3 files that you may have there.  It was worth a try I guess!

 

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