Because what you are essentially saying is that your going to export and import stuff until you have in one location (exchange), and then you just modify that going forward. But it doesn't matter if it's exchange, google contacts, apple, etc. Because they're all the same as far as that goes. the syncing is what would distinguish anything for me. So then...what's the best one and why?
Also, if that was the case, then I'm willing to go for a third party contact manager and just divorce myself completely from the big boys. Especially if the third party offered nifty features. Otherwise my choices would be google contacts, exchange, windows live...in that order. Google contacts just because my phone is android and would make it easier.-superboyac
Sorry about the delay, I'm trying to get IT wound down to a dull roar for a 3 week Christmas vacation...and the staff seems intent on making that as hard as possible. Ggaaaaaaaa!
Anyhow.. I've been running an Exchange server for close to a decade now and as crotchety as the old one got right before getting decommissioned it was still reliable as hell. We have several flavors of Android, a few iPhones, and me still with the WP7. All of which are stone axe reliably connected to our Exchange (now 2010) server. The sales manager - who I hold personally responsible (just to be an ass) for killing our Exchange 2003 server with his 8GB mailbox - is constantly glued to his (Android) phone with all the ferocity of a teenage girl. Yet with the insane amount of information that he pours through the system... His phone, computer, tablets, and laptop all stay happily in sync.
I don't trust Google, and have had some very bad experiences with their IMO rather feeble attempt at a mail server administration interface. I gave it a good, fair, and enthusiastic attempt...and it just burned me over and over.
1. A freshly created empty mailbox should never corrupt. Test messages went through in both directions, were deleted, and from the next day forward mail could not be sent from that box regardless of what was tried.
2. Delete means delete (e.g. eradicate), not play peek-A-boo with me because it's not really gone entirely...as it's still there in "spirit"...which is why you can't recreate a fresh one with that name.
3. Telling me to "Just use a different variation and/or add a 1 to "resolve the issue" is an incredibly bad idea...especially after the client has just spent a fortune on letterhead (etc...) with the now burnt cookie address.
I finally gave up after a year of trying to get one of our customers Google hosted mail domain to fly straight, and let them go back to using Yahoo accounts.
3rd party solutions can be effective only if you self host. Yes that is my own prejudice speaking...but it really is next to impossible to get a good idea of exactly how large/stable a company really is on the internet. So I try to avoid betting-the-farm on solutions that may vaporize overnight.
Apple solutions are designed to work fine in iWorld, but the instant you try to stray from "the path", you end up getting tech support from Goldie Hawn (a cute vapid blond from the 60's/70's).
