With hundreds of thousand of iPhonesflying off the shelvesin the U.S. in the last three weeks — and numerous Apple store reporting renewed shortages of thepopular machine — chance are good that IT staffers will be asked sooner or later to get an iPhone working on the corporate net . make that Apple has a report for shit consumer - focus products that — at least in the past — didn’t always act as dainty at oeuvre , most IT managing director are likely skeptical of letting iPhones on their web . Even without go-ahead buying plans , a literal keyboard and dense EDGE internet speeds , the sheer cast and function of this radical piece of technology may soon have your management teampushing youto pass judgment it for mass deployment .
Whether that new iPhone is company property or was bought by rogue employees , do n’t panic . By be a few easy steps , IT staffers might find that iPhone can make their life easier — and your colleague ( or genus Bos ) ecstatic :
Lock down the iPhone
If your employee are going to be access corporate assets , you will need to activate the four - fingerbreadth lock / unlock code . That way , if the speech sound is lose or stolen , someone else wo n’t be read your corporate e - chain armour . The passcode is off by default , but it ’s prosperous to turn on . Go to options - > General - > Passcode Lock and have the substance abuser embark something easy to commend . It is n’t Fort Knox , but it ’s as good as a garden - variety BlackBerry / Windows Mobile gimmick and will keep out most intruder . Also , verify the sleep clock time is mark to something low like the one - second default . Not only will this keep the iPhone safer , it will save some battery clock time .
Get a protective case
Spend the $ 20 ask to get a slick but supportivecasethat will in reality be used . Remind your iPhone - totin ’ workers that they are basically sway around a fragile , $ 600 piece of engineering science that is one drop or slip forth from being wretched . More significantly for you , by retrofit the iPhone with some physical protective cover , you could avoid bear to do all the paperwork , return and configuring of a replacement iPhone should breakage encounter .
Set up that phone/visual voice mail
Oh yeah ! This is a telephone after all . Take a few minute to localize it up and excuse the visual voice - mail lineament and save yourself support calls in the future tense . The nonlinear vocalization - post layout remains one of the most unsung features of the iPhone and one of the supposed justification for keeping it locked to AT&T. The true advantage arises when a meaning number of calls have endure unanswered — with some calls almost constantly more important than others . With visual part post , calls are repose out in e - mail - like manner , allowing the user to listen and reply to the more important message first — just like you ’d do in e - mail . This feature offers a unassailable business enterprise case for using the iPhone over BlackBerry / Windows Mobile , so you ’ll need to make trusted users actually take reward of it .
Use software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications like Basecamp or Salesforce.com
These types of apps really radiate on the iPhone and are growing in popularity , exist only in “ the swarm ” ( on the profits ) and take advantage of the AJAX - capable browser app features that iPhone rival lack . Perhaps this is why Steve Jobs is so inexorable about trying to goad development of Web 2.0 iPhone applications . aid out your users and pour down any needed SaaS - worthy URLs into the Safari browser app bookmarks — seize they have n’t already been transferred with the bookmark sync in iTunes .
Make your webmail server easy to access
You have an Exchange server or World Wide Web Access to vitamin E - ring armour / calendar / address Koran ? Of naturally , you do ; just about everyone does . The easy and most secure room to giveaccessto your corporate electronic messaging is to go to Safari and bookmark your Webmail server . This will essentially give your iPhone user the same user interface , albeit in slightly shrunken form , that they get when they use a web internet browser to get at an Exchange ( or other groupware ) server on strange computers . This should be a very intimate chore with an soft eruditeness curve .
That ’s the barren minimum for most drug user to get by for now . But if just drive by is not enough , there ’s more you may do to make your iPhone proprietor a respectable corporate citizen .
• Configure Mail . As an e - mail client , the iPhone ’s Mail applications programme is visually stunning and very equal to for a smart phone , especially with HTML - format e - mail . If you have your IMAP or POP3 server open to the cyberspace ( which has obvious security risks ) , you could configure the Mail program to check e - mail using the stock place setting . safe yet , use IMAP over SSL / TLS to connect . Just make trusted you spread up Port 993 on your firewall . You might even be capable to get your paranoid Exchange decision maker to turn on IMAPS , as long as you may testify that it is safe . One matter to note is that you ’ll have to use your own SMTP server , since AT&T ’s wo n’t function when the iPhone is using Wi - Fi . And in fount you ’re wondering , for those times when you ’re using the EDGE mesh to send e - mail , AT&T recommends using cwmx.com without a username and countersign . Just plug it in under setting - > Mail - > Account - > Outgoing Mail Server .
• When it follow to calendar and contact synchronise , the iPhone only syncs that data through iTunes . If you believe your users to expend iTunes , then adding this capability is n’t a huge leap , and enabling it just requires a sojourn to the user ’s iTunes preferences . More than likely , the iPhone will someday be able to pull up name and address from an LDAP database and calendar from a WebDAV server like the full Mac OS decade counterpart applications can . Until then , iTunes - less incorporated users will have to apply the iPhone Safari Web browser app to chequer calendars and contacts .
• If your caller has a public intranet , bookmark it in Safari ; most likely it will act upon decent unless it relies on ActiveX or Java . If it is inside a PPTP or L2TP / IPSec VPN , you ’re in luck , as the iPhone supports these protocol . However , since there is currently no way to get a certificate onto an iPhone , you will postulate to apply a shared secret key . If you use the popular Cisco PIX VPN , hang tight — Cisco support is rumored to be on the mode . Future update to the iPhone will also most likely allow employees to browse protect internal servers for files , which will make the VPN all that more significant .
• With Wi - Fi , the iPhone can access most open , WEP- or WPA - protected wireless meshing . But without the ability to ply a username and countersign or certification , it will not be able-bodied to get at 802.1X wireless web . I ’d expect this to be speak in a future release . Wireless mesh are almost as imperative as the AT&T EDGE fastness are slow for the broadband - addicted .
• Apple ’s Maps app , which relies on Google Maps , may be the slickest coating of the bunch for both drive direction and as a reference tool . The dealings maps monitor lizard is a godsend to commuters and will probably save them travelling time when trying to find that new node headquarters ahead of a big presentation . As a bonus , go down up the Weather software to all of the locale important to your users . Then show them the Calculator , alarm clock and blood tracker .
• When it come to backup , all of the iPhone data point is stored through iTunes . That mean a user or sysadmin can set up an exact clon in instant if the iPhone is lost or stolen . It does n’t wound to point this out to the user who will no doubt be very upset if they recede or wear their cute equipment . It also does n’t bruise to make a fill-in of the user ’s backup in case both the calculator and iPhone are suffer or damaged .
• Finally , have some playfulness . Get yourself an iPhone so you ’ll know how best to support this thing . The iPhone is an awing piece of technology that is changing the face of wireless communication . Oh , and if you have any additional questions , do what you tell your users to do : read themanual .
My point is that you do n’t need to fear the iPhone . sweep up it . Of course , it ’s going to be a costly hug , pass on that Apple is n’t likely to make a manoeuvre for your corporate dollars by offering discount , special service plans or privilege that consumer do n’t get . But it does n’t need to . The iPhone is a seductive equipment that is unbelievably easy to activate , set up and utilise — whether you are at household or work . fortune are , some of your agency mates and the workers you underpin already know that firsthand . And that mean , preferably or later , you ’ll need to know it , too .
Seth Weintraub is a spheric IT direction consultant specialise in the engineering science need of creative organizations , including The Paris Times , Omnicom and currently the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile . He has set up and managed thwartwise - platform internet on four continents and is an expert in Content Management Systems and large - scale PC and Macintosh Infrastructure .
