We have been tasked with integrating the iPhone into our enterprise. Our goals are the following:
- E-mail – either push or frequent polling, with user notification of new messages. Use of the native mail client is not required, but is preferred. If the native client is not used, it must integrate with the contacts application.
- Calendar – either push or frequent polling, with user notification of upcoming events. Use of the native calendar application is not required, but is preferred.
- Contacts – either push or frequent polling. Seeing as how there is an API for the contacts application, there is no need for a proprietary application.
- Ease of use – techno-weenies like us can cobble together any set of technologies into a Rube Goldberg nightmare. The executives of our clients need to be able to use this.
We realize that this is somewhere between nirvana, Brigadoon, and a point where Apple and IBM get together on a protocol like Exchange ActiveSync, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.
