Apple-Microsoft: Friendly Exchange

For years, Microsoft has been the largest Mac developer outside of Apple. It's return favor time.

Apple and Microsoft may be the definition of "coopetition." The companies may compete, but they're surprising partners, too. Even as Apple's "Get a Mac" ads throttle Windows Vista or as iPhone 3G whacks at Windows Mobile, Microsoft's competitor has become a surprising partner for Exchange Server 2007. Exchange is suddenly very important to Apple.

In March, Apple announced that iPhone 2.0 software would support Microsoft's ActiveSync, offering full synchronization fidelity with Exchange Server. The update is coming soon, presumably July 11 with the release of iPhone 3G.

Yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs started his World Wide Developer Conference keynote by talking about Exchange Server support: "We've built it in, out of the box in iPhone 2.0 software." There is support for push calendars, contacts and e-mail, auto-discovery, global address lookup, and remote wipe (if the device is lost or stolen).

He touted industry interest: 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies participated in Apple's Exchange beta program, including the top five commercial banks and security firms and six of the seven top airlines. Steve then showed a video with enterprise technology managers touting iPhone's Exchange support.

Later in the keynote, Apple's Phil Schiller introduced the new service MobileMe, which he described as "Exchange for the rest of us." That line also appears in online MobileMe marketing materials. How many people outside of the technology business really know what Exchange is? Certainly it's a smaller portion of the population, yet Apple uses Exchange as part of its MobileMe promotionals. Apple's marketing is always deliberate, using words that convey broader connotations or meanings. Apple must believe that Exchange is well-known enough and sufficiently embodies what it wants to convey about MobileMe.

Something else: Yesterday, quite quietly, Apple also started talking about the next version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard. According to the Snow Leopard informational page posted yesterday:

"Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007. Because Exchange is supported on your Mac and iPhone, you'll be able to use them anywhere with full access to your email, contacts, and calendar."

There is limited Exchange support in Mac OS X 10.5, or Leopard, but its successor apparently will go much further. Fuller Exchange support makes sense, given that Apple licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft and iPhone 2.0 supports the server software.

Apple isn't doing Microsoft any favors, though, same with Microsoft and Mac development. Microsoft develops products like Mac Office because they sell well; the company makes money. Apple is finally starting to take the enterprise market more seriously. Any enterprise move would necessitate supporting Exchange, and Apple has more to offer businesses with iPhone and Mac OS X.

Apple is Exchange Server's newest developer buddy. But don't get too cozy, guys. The friendship is really about buddying up to Exchange's enterprise friends, to whom Apple would like to sell iPhone and Macs.