Establishing a Link from a Mobile Phone to Exchange 2003

Exchange 2003 also supports the access of information from mobile phones that are not Pocket PC “enabled devices. Web-enabled phones offer you the ability to view email messages, calendar appointments, contact information, and other Outlook/Exchange information. Unlike the Pocket PC device that downloads and synchronizes information, the Web-enabled device offers a real-time view and information lookup.

The Web-enabled device uses the Outlook Mobile Access capability of Exchange 2003. Outlook Web Access assumes users access their Outlook information from a full-screen desktop computer, but Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) assumes users access their Outlook information from a much smaller screen. In some cases, the OMA screen may be only 8 “10 characters wide and 4 “5 lines deep, and the device might communicate at speeds equivalent to less than 9600 baud. With limited bandwidth and limited screen view size , the transfer of OMA information must be extremely efficient.

Establishing Connectivity for a Mobile Phone Device

To connect a mobile phone to Exchange 2003, you first establish network connectivity for the device. Two types of mobile phone devices are addressed in this section. One device is a physical wireless Web-enabled phone, and the other device is a Web-enabled emulator.

Connectivity of a Web-enabled Wireless Phone

Fortunately, the nature of a mobile phone is that it has connectivity to some service, typically a mobile phone carrier. The mobile phones that are Web-enabled have HTML, WAP, cHTML, or other wireless Web access and typically are configured from the factory to provide Internet Web access capabilities. To establish Internet connectivity, the best thing to do is read the instructions for the device. The technical support for the phone or carrier vendor will provide assistance on Internet connection.

After the mobile phone has the capability of accessing Web pages on the Internet, the device is ready to be configured for connection to Outlook Mobile Access (covered in the section "Using Outlook Mobile Access to Exchange 2003," later in this chapter).

Connectivity Using a Web-enabled Phone Emulator

For administrators who want to test Web-enabled Outlook Mobile Access but are not ready to commit to purchasing a mobile phone, a Web-enabled phone emulator is a great way to set up and test the OMA functionality. Openwave Systems Inc. (http://www. openwave .com) provides a mobile phone emulator that can be used with Exchange 2003. The emulator can be set up on a network-connected Windows workstation that can host the emulator. As with the Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC 2003, and the Smartphone emulators, the system should have connectivity to the Exchange 2003 server that will be tested .

Downloading the Web-enabled Emulator

To download the Openwave Mobile SDK, go to

http://developer.openwave.com/omdt/select_component.html

From that page, select to download the Complete Mobile SDK (54MB).

Installing the Web-enabled Emulator

After the Openwave Mobile SDK has been successfully downloaded, install the Web-enabled mobile phone emulator by expanding the OpenwaveMobileSDK.zip file and then launching the Openwave_SDK_622.exe file in the client\SDK directory. This installs the emulator on the host workstation.