Microsoft’s SMTP Patch could Delete your Email Accounts

A number of news sites have been reporting about Microsoft releasing a patch that fixes an issue with sending email on your Windows Mobile 6.1 device. The patch is available from the Outlook Mobile team web site and claims to fix the problem. I’m sure it might do that, but there are a number of things that they fail to mention. So before you go and install this patch, read the issues below and weigh the decision to install or not.

#1 The patch will restart your device without warning. If you’re in the middle of typing an email, have some applications open with data not saved, or perhaps you are trying to avoid rebooting the device - period, then you’re in for a nice little surprise. There’s no mention of a reboot on the Outlook Mobile site or during the install.

#2 The device restarts in Flight Mode. I’m not sure why it was necessary to put my device into Flight mode (turning the cellular radio off) in order to fix this bug. There are some people that might be using the device in a locked down or kiosk state and they might not have access to re-enable the cellular radio. There are others who might not even know how to toggle Flight mode. If you put my device into Flight mode, you should be taking it out as well. 

#3 And biggest issue that I came across - All of your IMAP or POP accounts could be deleted or inaccessible. I had 4 different email accounts on my device, but only 1 of these accounts had this SMTP problem. In that problem account I had 2 emails saved as draft because I wasn’t able to send them. The first was a short one-liner and no big deal.  The other email was a proposal that I had spent the better part of an hour working on while my kids flipped and tumbled through their gymnastics class.  After installing this patch my phone no longer shows these email accounts when I go into Outlook Mobile.  They are not listed in the Switch Accounts window and they are not present when I push left or right from the inbox.  The only accounts I have left are the default Outlook account and my SMS messages.

All of these issues are unacceptable and 100% avoidable through proper testing and communication. It’s nice to finally see Microsoft issuing patch’s to the consumer directly. However, without the proper testing you’re just wasting everyone’s time. It’s not like I have a weird or hacked phone.  I’m using a BlackJack II from Samsung and AT&T - one of the most popular phones on the market today.

This gets back to the point I made in an earlier post about Microsoft employee’s actually using the device without Exchange Direct Push as so many of us do.  I would love to see how many MCB team members are actually connecting their device to IMAP or POP email servers.  Just like desktop ActiveSync, I think I can count the number on one hand.  Microsoft, if you want to be in this game and compete against the likes of Google and Apple, you need to be more ontop of things and bring your A game to the table. 

I’m off to re-create all my email accounts on the device and then retype my lost proposal.

Why is Sync Still so Hard with Windows Mobile?

The fundamental idea behind a personal digital assistant (PDA) is to have all your appointments, contacts, tasks, and reminders with you while you’re not sitting in front of your computer in the office. I’ve been using Microsoft’s mobile platform since the iPAQ 3600 series way back in 2000 (I think?). There’s been one thing that hasn’t changed over all these years and revisions of the flagship mobile operating system from Microsoft - Sync. Despite numerous revisions to Active Sync (more commonly known as ActiveStink among the community) or Windows Mobile Device Center, as it’s now called on Vista, and Windows Mobile, there are still lots of people having lots of problems.

Duplicates is the biggest issue that I have been facing since the very start.  I don’t know how or why, but with every sync Outlook adds another copy of a reminder or appointment. The included image shows all the reminders in my calendar and I’ve highlighted the current crop of duplicates (click the image to see a larger version).  These are just the ones that fit into the screen shot.  Unfortunately, there are plenty more. Ultimately, I have to spend about 30 minutes every month or two, just to browse my calendar and remove these duplicates. Frustrating? Absolutely! What’s worse, is that I have personally brought this to the attention of people within Microsoft on a number of occasions and yet nothing has been done about it. Or if something was done, it didn’t fix the problem.  We’ve been through a number of copies of Outlook, ActiveSync, and Windows Mobile.  You would think that over all these years, and updates that they could have hammered out where the problem is coming from and done something to correct this.

As the mobile industry welcomes Apple and Google into it’s arena, Microsoft has to get their act together and create a solid sync experience. I won’t even get into the fact that the iPhone found all my email accounts in Outlook and ported them over the the phone without a single hiccup (Another thing Microsoft should have done years ago!). iTunes, Apples’s poorly named sync tool, actually works very well when it comes to transferring contacts, reminders, and what-have-you to the device. And while I haven’t actually had hands-on time with the new G1 Android device from Google, I haven’t read about any real problems getting personal information onto the device. In fact, from what I understand, it sync’s from the cloud pretty easily and hassle free.

Microsoft needs to show that they mean business in this space and with today’s Sync solution, they are a long way off. There needs to be a fool-proof, easy to use Sync tool or customers will start looking elsewhere for the Smartphones and PDA’s.  Not everyone is running or wants to run Exchange just so they can sync details with their phones.  I challenge the entire Windows Mobile, ActiveSync, and Outlook teams at Microsoft to turn off Exchange Direct Push and only use desktop ActiveSync for the next 6 months. Maybe then you will understand the frustrations and problems of your customers.

Microsoft & RIM Announce Live Search for BlackBerry Devices

Today Microsoft and RIM announced that they are working together to integrate Live Search into RIM’s popular BlackBerry devices. Research in Motion still has the dominate share of the mobile market, despite the success of Apple’s iPhone which comes pre-loaded with Google’s search functionality on the device. Google has already displayed it’s Android mobile OS with their search functionality built in. Once the OS is released, Google will have a small but significant corner of the mobile eco-system etched out. If Microsoft can leverage their existing Windows Mobile market share and add RIM’s BlackBerry share, they will have a solid lead in mobile search.

Live Search is already available for BlackBerry devices (in beta) and Windows Mobile devices. You can download it directly to your smartphone by visiting http://wls.live.com using your phones mobile browser. The BlackBerry version will be released before the end of the year and is expected to offer better integration with the OS and browser.

The full press release is available at the Microsoft Press Pass website.

John Starkweather Talks with Akihabara News

Back in June of 2006 I had a chance to interview John Starkweather (part 1, part 2). At that time, John was the Group Product Manager for Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft. Fast forward a couple years and John is now the International Director of Product Management at Microsoft. He recently sat down with the guys from Akihabaranews.com for a 3 part video interview. In the first part John talks about the history of Windows Mobile and briefly talks about some of the new phones that have been released running Windows Mobile 6.1.

Check out the video over at Akihabaranews.com