Gmail Exchange vs Outlook Mobile vs Exchange Activesync

[HCHTech]

For corporate O365 users who have Android phones, we now have 3 choices for their company email. I'm old-school, so have been sticking to Exchange Activesync, but I'm sure I'm missing something new and wonderful. Here's my incomplete list of pros and cons for each choice:

Gmail Exchange:
Pro: "all your email in one place", I guess.
Pro: Google spam filtering?
Pro: Native app vs. add-in
Pro: ?
Con: More of your life under the control of the Google overlords
Con: ?


Outlook Mobile:
Pro: More like the desktop Outlook experience
Pro: ?
Con: (unsubstantiated) I'll bet this is a big, memory-hungry app.
Con: ?

Exchange Activesync:
Pro: It's been around the longest so is the most mature software of the 3
Pro: I don't know, it always works?
Con: Whatever are the "Pro ?" entries for the other two?
Con: ?

Can anyone help fill in the chart so I can make a more informed choice?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The default e-mail client that comes with smart phones...be it Android or Apple....is...very bland and lacking. If you're been doing computers since the Windows 95 days...remember Outlook Express? Compare Outlook Express...to full blown Outlook from Microsoft Office. Two VERY different e-mail clients, and full Outlook is designed to utilize all of the features of Exchange Server. Calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, all those sub folders, etc etc etc.

Years ago NitroDesk sold a great Exchange app for smart phones...called TouchDown. Later bought up by Symantec. Still a great app. Not free...but a great app....very much like full Outlook.

Another popular one...NINE.

And not too long ago, Microsoft released their Outlook app for smart phones. Looks just like Outlook, free, and..easy peasy to setup, even for local on-prem Exchange servers. I only had 2x grips about it...the stupid "Focused Inbox" feature is enabled by default..so I turn that right off. And..until recently, it didn't sync the address book well, depending on which smart phone it was installed on. Recent released only in the past 6 months or so finally tightened that up.

If your clients business is using a mobile device manager (MDM)....most of those only work with the stupid useless stripped/watered down default e-mail client built into smart phones. A couple of them support a good 3rd party e-mail client such as TouchDown...I have not seen any yet that support the Outlook client. Even the MDM built into O365 E versions does not support the Outlook client...yup...Microsofts own MDM doesn't configure Outlook on phones.

But if your clients business doesn't use an MDM...Microsofts Outlook app gets my vote! That's what I use for work...and we have our own in-house Exchange server.

 

[HCHTech]

stupid useless stripped/watered down default e-mail client built into smart phones.

Tell us how you REALLY feel, YO!

I suspect most clients wouldn't know what they were missing until they see a better solution like the Outlook app. I have concerns about storage, though - I know when I normally do an Exchange Activesync, I'm careful to limit the amount of old email that gets synced to a couple of weeks. Just last week, I had to kill contact sync for a client because the guy had 13,000 contacts and the sync about killed his phone. There is never a one-size-fits-all answer unfortunately.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I have concerns about storage, though - I know when I normally do an Exchange Activesync, I'm careful to limit the amount of old email that gets synced to a couple of weeks. Just last week, I had to kill contact sync for a client because the guy had 13,000 contacts and the sync about killed his phone.

Yeah, sometimes you run across a phone cramped for stowage-space. Gotta scale back the sync time.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I use the NINE app or the Outlook app. Both are great and integrate with the phones calendars and so forth.