Quick summary- Exchange, Google, Palm Pre

This is an excerpt from a recent email.  It's captured here for reference, and will be fleshed out more later!

The topic:  what hosted email service to use when using a Palm Pre or other similar mobile device along with Microsoft Outlook.

You might want to look at these resources:

On my web site:

http://www.interconnected.com/the-productivity-perspective/2008/11/17/surprising-aspects-of-technology.html

and

http://www.interconnected.com/the-productivity-perspective/2008/12/31/google-may-have-something-marrying-gmail-with-ones-own-email.html

If you go the Exchange route, and you are not an InterConnected Technologies client, you might want to look at:

http://www.123together.com/Exchange-Hosting-for-Small-Business.xhtml

or

http://www.rackspace.com/email_hosting/

If you go this route, everything (email, contacts, calendar, tasks, memos) is sync’d between Exchange and Outlook.  Almost everything (email, contacts, calendar, tasks) is sync’d with the Pre.  Pre memos don’t sync with anything.

If you go the Google Apps route, and are willing to pay for Premier ($50/year), you can use Google Apps Outlook Sync:

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/outlook_sync.html#utm_source=en-ha-na-us-glook&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20apps%20outlook%20sync

If you go this route, email, contacts, calendar sync between Google apps and Outlook (and the Pre).  Google Tasks doesn’t sync with anything, yet. 

If you only want free Gmail or the Standard edition of Google Apps (free), you’re left with using IMAP in Outlook:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75726

If you go this route, on the Palm Pre you’ll be relying on your Palm Profile to back up your calendar, tasks, contacts and memos, since IMAP is email-only.  For devices other than the Palm Pre, you will be relying on whatever backup you have for your Outlook data file.

Clear as mud, eh?

If you are willing to pay for the best, I’d get the best:  hosted Exchange.  Then, everything that can sync, will sync.  You get to use Outlook, the Pre and the web-based Outlook Web Access to get at all your data (with the caveat about Pre memos, for now).

Any option is doable by mere mortals, but having some experience doing it speeds up the process, a lot, and gives a better overall result!  That's where the service and experience of InterConnected Technologies comes in.  In addition, with Exchange, we can get better pricing for my clients than what is shown on those web sites.