Exchange ActiveSync support

[Matt T]

Does anybody know if Apple have plans to incorporate Exchange ActiveSync support in Lion to make Exchange compatibility as seemless as it is on iOS?

 

[Phil A.]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I don't think they'll be able to: microsoft will only license exchange activesync for mobile devices afaik. Snow leopard uses exchange web services to communicate with Exchange (as does outlook 2011) and I think Lion will continue to do so.
It means a rich interface between exchange and OS X but with the downside that it's exchange 2007 and higher only.

 

[Reliant]

EWS is just as seamless as Activesync, and is a more feature rich protocol. Also, you pay MS for Activesync, and it's really designed for the mobile space. Was there some specific aspect of Activesync you were referring to since used the word seamless?

 

[Matt T]

(Sorry for the late reply). In particular I was hoping that I would be able to use my Exchange account in Mail without needing to be connected to a VPN. Exchange mail works perfectly in iOS without the need to be connected to a VPN, although I haven't discovered a way to do that with OS X yet. I'm assuming ActiveSync is what makes it possible for iOS.

 

[Sky Blue]

I've always used my Exchange account in Mail without the need for VPN.

 

[Reliant]

(Sorry for the late reply). In particular I was hoping that I would be able to use my Exchange account in Mail without needing to be connected to a VPN. Exchange mail works perfectly in iOS without the need to be connected to a VPN, although I haven't discovered a way to do that with OS X yet. I'm assuming ActiveSync is what makes it possible for iOS.

This is perfectly capable with Exchange going back for almost 10 years. Now if your administrator disabled it that's one thing. The component is called RPC over HTTPs. You should ask your mail admins if it's on, or also just try to configure the client and see if it works.

 

[djfrugal1]

activesync on lion

I have the same question. For those of us that work for companies that haven't updated exchange since 2003, we can only use activesync and get our mail on iOS devices and can't on the mac computer. So now I am wondering with all of this Cloud stuff going on, what is going to happen between my mail app on my computer and my iOS mail? Mail on the computer didn't support activesync and this has been a huge problem for many of us.

 

[Reliant]

I have the same question. For those of us that work for companies that haven't updated exchange since 2003, we can only use activesync and get our mail on iOS devices and can't on the mac computer. So now I am wondering with all of this Cloud stuff going on, what is going to happen between my mail app on my computer and my iOS mail? Mail on the computer didn't support activesync and this has been a huge problem for many of us.

I'm fairly sure iCloud means your @me.com email will be pushed to each device, not any mail client you have on your phone. This service would be the same as it is now, having the device push/pull the email in the same sense it does now, not like the way music/photos/etc would work. Now you might be able to find less than awesome ways to sync your corporate mail to your @me.com address after this, and get it to your device using forwarding and what not, but that will either be denied by your work environment or frowned upon, and any composed emails would be from your @me.com, which also wouldn't be preferential.

Exchange 2003 users again can still communicate with their corporate servers without VPN if their mail admins have decided to enable it. Just because it's an old version does not mean it isn't capable. You should ask your mail admins about RPC/Outlook anywhere and see if they've enabled it, or if they would. Even with Exchange 2003 it's a feature rich protocol, unlike setting up your corporate email as imap or pop. One caveat to note is that programs such as Outlook 2011 or the new Mail.app do not support Exchange 2003 if they support Exchange 2007/2010. (Outlook 2011 does not support Exchange 2003 at all) Microsoft changed from webdav to EWS with 2007, and most clients don't support both. Hell, even Microsoft's product, Entourage 2008, needs to be patched to a EWS version, which breaks compatibility with 2003.

I guess what I'm saying is that all that you are asking is perfectly capable, but you might be at the mercy of your mail admins or IT policy.

 

[asbah]

I have written an article here: http://awangshamsul.net/?p=283 discussing about "Apple Mail + OS X Lion + Exchange Server 2003?".

Here are the points that you need to know:

Your company is still using Microsoft Exchange 2003
Minimum requirement for Apple Mail or Outlook 2011 is Microsoft Exchange 2007 or later
Apple Mail (Snow Leopard and Lion) only support Exchange Web Services (EWS) which is the new technology for Exchange 2007, unlike WebDav and IMAP Exchange which was previously supported in Exchange 2003
iPhone/iPad/Android Phones/ Windows Mobile/ Symbian on the other hand is using ActiveSync which widely used on mobile phones nowadays to connect and synchronize with Exchange server. This ActiveSync technology is not supported on Apple Mail (Snow Leopard/ Lion); an even on Microsoft Outlook at any Windows machines.

 

[joejoejoe]

Just got outlook 2011 installed on our new iMacs at work, and mail seems to be coming in on a minute by minute fetch basis, rather than being pushed into my inbox immediately.

Is this a result of all the above or is there a fix?

 

[srgz]

Does anyone know if there is *any* mail cleint that can run on OS X that supports Exchange Active Sync?
I haven't been able to find one -- fingers crossed though.
If a mobile device can implement it, I don't see what prevents a desktop mail client from doing it.
I don't want to get into specifics but my company uses a translation server for our mail email server (not microsoft based) that supports EAS (exchange active sync) for mobile. They do *not* support IMAP or any other protocol. The main mail client they support for their narive mail is Windows only.
So the end result is me needing a mail client that can do EAS on OS X.
Thanks all in advance.

 

[zainjetha]

Wonder if Microsoft now license EAS out given the fact they have implemented in outlook 2013. Exchange web services is terrible on Mac mail