Apple calls their MobileMe service “Exchange for the rest of us”. In short, MobileMe is Apple’s economical Exchange solution for email and collaboration, targeting Apple users. For Apple-only users, this may be true. However, if a business or family has a variety of desktop and mobile devices, Exchange wins hands down.

Apple MobileMe – The Pros and Cons

Like almost any device or service, MobileMe has its fair share of strengths and weaknesses. For instance, yes, it was built on push technology, used to keep email, calendars and contacts in sync over all of your devices, whether PC or Mac. However, users that need to sync their PC and other Microsoft products have sometimes complained about errors.

A few of MobileMe’s features, however, have endeared the service to many Mac users, such as iDisk, that allows users to share files online, and Find My iPhone, which helps you find other Apple devices. As well, it let’s you create and share a web photo gallery with other MobileMe users. In short, it’s a wonderful service for Apple users. What about those that have more than one device and those devices are built on more than one platform?

Where MobileMe Missed the Business Exchange?

MobileMe is a great little service, but leaves businesses relying on a Microsoft Exchange network behind. As many know, though, Apple has grown as a family and personal use platform, but Microsoft still rules in business. The differences between the two services point out why:

While some individuals use smart phones as their main information holder, many use their desktop platforms. Exchange allows desktop calendar and contact sync, allowing people on the move to sync with their main information for updates or information retrieval.
Although Apple has the possibility of adding shared mailboxes and multiple accounts, they don’t currently support this feature. For Enterprise level businesses, this Exchange capability is priceless, allowing employees and management to send company-wide information from anywhere.
Exchange provides Global Address List access to a shared, corporate directory, a feature that allows a company employee to search and find any available company email address for easy reference and retrieval. This feature also provides scheduling abilities for a group or groups, rather than scheduling with individual employees or management.
Apple MobileMe has limited junk mail filtering. Exchange offers more robust antivirus and spam filters.
Exchange allows the set up of server side mail rules
Used in conjunction with Blackberry, it includes mobile messaging features such as voice memos and voice-to-text (voicemail transcription).

Is MobileMe a good choice for personal use? If you use nothing but Apple products, absolutely. However, for those that use multiple platforms, Exchange is still the clear winner.