Palm Pre Smart Phone and Microsoft Exchange Synchronization

Palm Pre, a new smart phone by Palm, is getting rave reviews.  However, what is of interest to our hosted Exchange customers in the business world  is the synchronization between the smart phone and Microsoft Exchange server.  In this regard, we have been searching the Web for information about this feature.  Here is what we found. Unlike some older Palms that used the Windows Mobile OS, Palm Pre uses Palm’s new mobile OS called WebOS.

Here is a little nugget from a reviewer in PC magazine about the sync feature: >Like other smartphones, the Pre lets you load a bunch of e-mail accounts at once.  I successfully added Google, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Live, Mobile Me, and Yahoo accounts to my test handset. You can sync multiple accounts of the same type, and they appear as separate inboxes with subfolders. On my tests, all the accounts supported push e-mail, and HTML messages appeared with clickable links. When I got JPEG attachments, the Pre offered to save them in its image library. MP3, PDF, video, and Microsoft Office attachments are viewable, but not savable. The Pre lets you respond to Microsoft Exchange meeting requests without a problem.” Palm Pre still has some updates to go through to  improve functionality with Microsoft Exchange.  In June, Palm rolled out new 1.0.3 firmware for the Palm Pre which among other fixes includes the fix for a Microsoft Exchange bug that may be affecting some users.  Pre phones has also been reported to have had problems with servers that require PIN and password enforcement.