Since the iPhone was released in the UK in October 2007 many people have been desperate to get their hands on one (myself included) to see what all the fuss was about. Would it be the revolution in mobile telephony that everyone seemed to be hinting at? Could it deliver business functionality? Would it be a viable replacement for my Windows mobile device?
With the release of the new 2.0 firmware in June 2008 which included Microsoft Exchange server integration, we decided to invest in the iPhone make it work on our network. It was pleasantly surprising to find that connecting to our Exchange server was a simple one minute job and worked perfectly first time. Once the secure connection had been made, the iPhone went off and downloaded the items we specified such as Email, Calendar and Contacts. Within the space of five minutes, everything had synchronized and the phone was set up and working.
The look and feel of the iPhone is second to none and makes the whole experience of reading email, browsing contacts and calendar entries infinitely more enjoyable than a traditional phone. The only niggles are mainly down to personnel preference and are just the way Apple design the user interface.
One downside to the iPhone is the fact that it is tied into the O2 network. However, some clever people have posted instructions on the internet on how to unlock the iPhone so that it works on any network. Fusion would never condone these actions but we have carried out an experiment to see if it works and we can confirm that we managed to produce a fully working iPhone on the Orange network.
All in all I believe that the iPhone is not only a great gadget but a fully functional business tool which Fusion can now support and configure should any of our clients decide to invest in this very exciting technology.