Apple iPhone gets ActiveSync, push e-mail

Apple has finally granted the wish of business users who have craved the coolness of the iPhone but couldn't live without push e-mail.

On Thursday, Apple announced that it had licensed the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol, which will make it much easier for iPhone users to do push e-mail and contacts with Exchange servers.

Until now, iPhone users who wanted to get e-mail on their iPhones had to jump through a series of technical hoops. As a result, a lot of business users, who would have otherwise bought the iPhone right away, have stood on sidelines with their BlackBerry or Windows Mobile devices.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, demonstrated on stage how to activate and set up the Exchange function on an iPhone. The entire set up can be done over the air, allowing e-mail, contacts, and calendar information to be automatically pushed to a device.

Right now, Research in Motion dominates the business smartphone market with over two-thirds of its 12 million customers coming from businesses and government. Large businesses bought in early to RIM's push e-mail system, which requires large companies to have all their e-mail routed through RIM's own servers.

For the most part, RIM's BlackBerry e-mail service has been a huge success. But there are signs that the company's dominance could be vulnerable. In the past six months RIM has experienced at least two major outages where e-mails were not forwarding to BlackBerry devices in a timely manner.

Blackberry's co-CEO Jim Balsillie said a day after the last outage that he wasn't too worried about the outage affecting its relationship with business customers. But as Apple makes it easier for corporate customers to get e-mail on the iPhone, he may reconsider.