This week, several clients have contacted RatwareUK after purchasing a blackberry-style BT Broadband Anywhere bundle. See the following link BT Broadband Anywhere .

Many customers believe this is a plug and play solution that can be used at their business to give staff access to email whilst on the move. This is not the case. The product above is for home use only. It is linked to a residential BT Hub (which they provide) and it uses BT’s independent mail servers supplying a btconnect.com (or similar) email address. It will not link up to your company’s exampledomain.com or your company’s mail server.

To compound matters, BT are also accidentally sending out residentially configured phones to customers requesting them for business use!

In a nutshell: Rolling out compatible mobile devices which staff can use to access their company email is more complicated. Considering Windows Mobile devices specifically; if you have Microsoft Small Business Server, or Microsoft Exchange Server you have to complete the following steps:

  1. Purchase 1 or more Windows Mobile Devices with GPRS connectivity. (See BT Business Product as one example - there are many more).
  2. Install Exchange SP2
  3. Install ActiveSync 4.2 or higher
  4. Enable mobile services for users
  5. Configure your company’s firewall and web services
  6. Install a secure certificate on the device
  7. Configure Windows Small Business Server 2003 for MSFP
  8. Configure device synchronization
  9. Test the deployment

If anybody requires any assistance with remote working solutions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We’d be more than happy to advise. Remember, don’t just dive in on what looks like a good deal.

Hope this helps!

Matt