I mentioned in my last post that there seemed to be a new choice regarding elements to synchronize with the new Windows Mobile 6.5 ROMs. And since I’ve been lazy for some days now I’ve only gotten around to digging further into it now (Had to shuffle around some of my virtual boxes, and upgrade a physical box to 2008 R2, so there was some downtime too.)

I ran through the ActiveSync configuration on a HTC Touch Pro 2 with a 6.5 Beta/RC build, and in the screen where you put a checkmark next to “Calendar”, “Mail”, etc you also get an item called “Text Messages”. I did not see this on my Diamond 2 running 6.5, and it’s not present in the emulator images either so I’m guessing it’s related to which build of WM you are running. I selected it, and ran through the rest of the settings like one would normally do, and finished off hitting the sync button.

I moved my mailbox from my Exchange 2007 server to a server running Exchange 2010 RC, as this is a server side requirement. After the sync a new mail appeared in the inbox:

With some further yada yada about having to sign out and back in to enable the feature.

Sure enough – after signing in again in OWA “Text Message” was listed as a choice below the “New”-button.

You do not have to type in a country prefix – at least when you’re on your home network. (Haven’t tested roaming yet.) The SMS is then synched to the device, and the device will do the actual sending. This means that:
- It is unrelated to configuring an SMS account in OWA/Outlook. That feature doesn’t actually require a device, but doing it this way needs a device running ActiveSync.
- It does not require integrating Exchange with Kannel or any other SMS gateway.
- It would probably be recommended to use DirectPush on your device so you don’t have to wait for the next scheduled sync to occur before the SMS is sent.

I have no idea how this is handled if you have multiple devices with an ActiveSync partnership concurrently. (Yes, some of us are using 2-3 devices at a time “for the fun of it”.)

If you receive an SMS this will be synced to your inbox (sent SMSs go to sent items). So you actually get the SMS both in the mail and SMS inbox on your device – which I agree is confusing to the average user. Maybe it’s possible to setup a separate folder for SMSs, and then you’d choose to not sync this folder to the device. Looks pretty neat with the updated conversation view in OWA though.

I haven’t tested this with Outlook 2010 yet, but I assume it would work there too. (Might not be enabled in the current public beta build of course.)

If your take on this is “so what, big deal”, or “I can sync my SMSs with MyPhone” I can go along with that. It’s not the feature of the century, but I have been getting a number of requests from people who happen to want an on-premise backup of text messages not only for the convenience of the user, but also compliance/auditing reasons. I mean – there is a reason you don’t let the users just work with locally stored content in Outlook. I’d probably establish some ethical rules regarding the privacy of the user. People are getting used to work mail being work-related, and belonging to the employer, but I don’t think people are expecting the same policy applying to text messages. Sure, you can have a separate SIM card for work and leisure, but I prefer to be reachable through one number at all times of the day.