MobileMe - “Exchange for the rest of us” - said Steve Jobs, but do consumers really need it?

Rating: Hit or Miss for Mrs & Mrs average?

If you read our live blogging form the WWDC 2008 earlier today you might have picked up on MobileMe but I think it deserves a little more attention, especially due to the integration with the iPhone.

MobileMe is “Exchange for the rest of us” says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. MobileMe is a new internet service from Apple costing $99/£59 a year with 2GB of online storage.

They say: MobileMe(TM), a new Internet service that delivers push email, push contacts and push calendars from the MobileMe service in the “cloud” to native applications on iPhone(TM), iPod(R) touch, Macs and PCs. MobileMe also provides a suite of elegant, ad-free web applications that deliver a desktop-like experience through any modern browser. MobileMe applications (http://www.me.com don’t go there yet, there is nothing there apart from a redirect) include Mail, Contacts and Calendar, as well as Gallery for viewing and sharing photos and iDisk for storing and exchanging documents online.

With a MobileMe email account, all folders, messages and status indicators look identical whether checking email on iPhone, iPod touch, a Mac(R) or a PC. New email messages are pushed instantly to iPhone over the cellular network or Wi-Fi, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads. Push also keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically pushed up to the cloud and down to other devices. Push works with the native applications on iPhone and iPod touch, Microsoft Outlook for the PC, and Mac OS(R) X applications, Mail, Address Book and iCal(R), as well as the MobileMe web application suite.

MobileMe web applications are 100 percent ad-free and provide an incredible, desktop-like experience that allows users to drag and drop, click and drag and even use keyboard shortcuts. MobileMe provides anywhere access to Mail, Contacts and Calendar, with a unified interface that allows users to switch between applications with a single click, and Gallery makes it easy to share photos on the web in stunning quality. Gallery users can upload, rearrange, rotate and title photos from any browser; post photos
directly from an iPhone; allow visitors to download print quality images; and contribute photos to an album. MobileMe iDisk lets users store and manage files online with drag and drop filing and makes it easy to share
documents too large to email by automatically sending an email with a link for downloading the file. MobileMe includes 20GB of online storage that can be used for email, contacts, calendar, photos, movies and documents.

We say: “Exchange for the rest of us” says Steve Jobs. Well what does he mean? He is referring to Microsoft’s Exchange Server. The de facto standard for IT Departments around the globe, and Apple have launched a 2 fold attack on this market. Firstly to go after the biggest corporate mobile on the market - The BlackBerry. The new iPhone 2 software, available as a free upgrade to the EDGE iPhone brings the ability to talk to Exchange direct. So now the iPhone is up against the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile Devices and handsets from other manufacturers including Nokia, who have enabled BlackBerry BES connectivity on a number of their devices.

So is the iPhone a corporate device? Without a QWERTY keyboard I’m not sure the iPhone can take over this market. Don’t get me wrong, I think the virtual keyboards on the iPhone/iPod Touch are pretty good. I have got used to mine pretty quickly and I have written emails but would it replace my BlackBerry 8820, not a chance for me; and what is waiting in the wings, well the BlackBerry Touch with a similar touch screen interface and a huge wow factor.

So phase 2 for Apple was to bring the type of facilities only experienced in bigger companies to the consumer, MobileMe looks great I have to say. You can see a demo here. It really does create a desktop experience online but how many consumers need this level of technology. I’m sure a lot will sign up for the service as it replaces  .MAC and offers a wealth of other facilities as mentioned above that integrate to the iPhone, but I would be interested to see how many users will go to their PC on their desk at work and sync MobileMe to their Outlook and that’s without them circumventing their IT department who will probably have their PC’s/Outlook talking to Exchange.

What this seems like is an attempt to enable this service for SMS’s  as an alternative to Exchange which needs an IT person to administer it, either in house as part of their other jobs or externally. Companies offering this service, who host Exchange and charge on a per user basis have sprung up all over the place, and charge about £25-£30 per month per user. They send you the instructions in an email and hey presto you have email push, calendar/contact sharing, Web Outlook and the option for OTA mobile device synchronisation. This is usually free if you use a Windows Mobile Device or about £30 a month per user for BlackBerry’s.

So I have been surprised Apple hasn’t announced an SME deal in a similar way to their family packs. I have emailed their PR department to see if there any in the pipe line, becuase 1 ccount shared with 10 Devices may well offer a real cost effective alternative.

So MobileMe looks great, the demo was smooth, but is their a real need for push technology for the consumer. Yes all the photo integration will be hugely popular but do the masses really want a Exchange server push functionality. I can see it being hugely popular for solo, 1 man band companies, and for small companies if its easy to set up and admnister, and if you can have fully shared Contacts and Calenders. What Apple are offering is a differant path, seamless intergreation with a mobile device, MAC and a PC, for £59 per year. Perhaps it is just too good to turn down even for SME’s.