“Google Sync was designed to allow access to Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts via the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol. With the recent launch of CardDAV, Google now offers similar access via IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, making it possible to build a seamless sync experience using open protocols. Starting January 30, 2013, consumers won’t be able to set up new devices using Google Sync; however, existing Google Sync connections will continue to function.” Others are free to implement the open protocols.
It sounds like Google is finally hitting back after all the patent trolling Microsoft has done against Android.
Edited 2012-12-14 23:37 UTC
It sounds like you don’t know what a patent troll is.
Wonder how much google could limit microsoft profits at all by their search engine algorithm and browser deals. I have not seen anyone in days using an actual adress since the omnibar was installed on all firefox (and equivalent on the opera browser) at my company. It redirects to some smart google server that sometimes hits directly and sometimes just google the results. Soon all the webmonkeys will not know what a web adress is, just as most yuong web users today do not know what a BBS is.
Glad Google is pushing open protocols now that they have the market share to matter. Everyone wins with open protocols.
As long as they don’t “embrace and extend” said protocols with proprietary capabilities, like other companies have been known to do.
Like their IMAP implementation, which broke a lot of Windows Phones last week…
They maintain a custom IMAP protocol, which they use to access special functions, for example: contacts synchronization. There is discussion of the whole thing at wpcentral: http://www.wpcentral.com/google-drops-exchange-activesync-what-s-it…
Edited 2012-12-15 01:09 UTC
How dare Google not license Microsofts protocol and adopt open standards supported by the majority of mobile devices!
Oh wait, that’s a good thing. Never mind.
FYI, CalDav is not proprietary http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791,
If this is an attack on microsoft, they could easily counter by just embracing standards.
But Google can take an open standard and make it proprietary to fit their needs.
And I see Google is keeping it for the business customers which seems to me that they just dont want to pay the licenses for their free customers and want them to move over to paying if they want good advanced features. (Nothing wrong with that) but to play it like they are doing it to support open standards sounds a little fishy (Being that they also got rid of free Google Apps)
Microsoft is stuck though because they can’t make money off of using open standards they could of implemented those a long time ago if they could.
They very much could, but their track record shows that they’re very much willing to work with appropriate standards bodies to ensure that the protocols and file formats, etc. that they work on are open and accessible, unlike Microsoft.. still.
It is more than likely they’ll have a slower phase out period even for business customers but it’ll go away there as well eventually.
That is complete nonsense. Especially for Microsoft.
Thats very unlikely being that Active Sync is used in the enterprise for Windows phones and PC’s, Blackberry BES and also iPhones.
If they want to replace Exchange more in the enterprise they wont be getting rid of it.
Like their broken, non standard IMAP implementations. Just because something is a standard does not mean it is implicitly good. It is still subject to abuse by implementations.
It is a shot across the bow to Microsoft’s stranglehold on the enterprise market with EAS.
IMAP isn’t anything comparable to what businesses use or are used to when doing device management with EAS.
I’d be much less against this move if there was a viable alternative to EAS and it wasn’t a functional step backwards for the sake of politics.
.
Edited 2012-12-16 02:44 UTC
What actually is broken about Google’s IMAP implementation?
This is genuine question: I have a script I use to pull down my GMail, store it to a DB, and then index everything into Lucene (also playing around with clustering it, etc).
Anywho, so far it’s worked fine. Actually pretty straightforward. It’s one HUGE advantage of imap over EAS: it’s really simple (and free) to create your own interface. But only if Google sticks to the standard
Seems to be working fine now (just checked on my script).
But let me know if you know something I don’t! Might save me some bug hunting
“Advanced Features” == “working with Microsoft backend” ??
From a pragmatic view, I guess that would make sense to most non tech people. But to me, its more like Apple announcing that it wouldn’t allow flash on its mobile devices. Its actually a good thing that will over time consign poorer, less open technology to the dust bin ( even though I didn’t see that at the time). And in this case, most clueless consumers are going to blame Microsoft for not working with gmail and google calandar, rather than the other way around. They’ll push microsoft to adapt to the open standards. That’s pretty cool, in my book.
No, I think they developed exchange at a time where other companies were doing their own proprietary email/calendaring solution ( ie lotus notes) . When the standards were developed, they already had a vast majority of the market and figured that they probably wouldn’t make more money by opening up by choice. Now they are in a different competitive landscape where their users are going to demand that their clients support an open standard. If I were Microsoft, I wouldn’t change Exchange, by any means, but change the clients on Windows phone 8 to integrate with Imap /caldav.
Found this after I posted:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/14/editorial-windows-phone-future-w…
Microsoft *needs* to make its os work well with google products in order to have a chance. Again, If Google stops supporting a MS protocol in favor of an open one, MS needs to adopt the open one to keep customers happy.
I actually work with Google Apps and did a 3000 seat implementation for the US government. Google is not going to get rid of Active Sync for their business clients. Users love using Outlook, iPhones and Blackberry’s (BES uses Active Sync to connect to Exchange and also to Google Apps) Plus Windows 8 phones and even Android have the Active Sync client.
You know that Microsoft sells their active sync implementation and make millions of just that alone??
And you also noticed that this coincides with Google getting rid of their free offerings of Google Apps right?
Microsoft is not going to change something they are making millions off of, Google is taking it out of their free offerings of Google mail only, the client will be in Android still and every other mobile OS still has it and it will stay in their business offerings that people pay for (To cover the license fees they pay Microsoft)
My guess is that they’ll do it like the XMPP support in Messenger: Use the standard and a white list of peers.
So they’ll only do caldav with Google (and maybe IBM/Lotus, Apple and RIM, if they follow Google’s lead), but since every server and client that interacts with them would require some “API key” or white list entry, it remains a big boys’ club – and that’s something they can live with.
The real panic starts when they’re forced to go openly federated – Google had their share of anxiety in that regard as well (Google Talk’s XMPP was locked down for a long time, too).
Not really “a long time” – checking out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtalk#History it was less than half a year, only some time. ;p
Yeah, their IMAP is sooo brooken that I cannot use any of the IMAP client I tested…oh, wait – it works!
Let’s now switch roles – can I use IMAP (or any other open *useful* protocol) to access MS mailbox? There was pop3 (tho, in premium!) but it’s not so convenient and if you wanted semblance of the IMAP you HAD to use stupid MS protocols that forced you to use stupid MS implementations of those (MSOE).
1:0 for google. Even if they extend open protocols then allow at least basic access to general clients (take xmpp for example)
Can you use IMAP to talk to exchange? Why yes you can, thanks for asking.
was MS providing such option for its flagship mail service (we are comparing such – gmail vs hotmail)… well – NO!
http://help.outlook.com/en-ca/140/cc875899.aspx you were saying?
“Topic last modified: 2012-07-31”
You were saying? Gmail supported open standards from the beginning. MS did so only when they users walked away to the more sane service (I’ve checked live/hotmail about 1yr ago and IMAP wasn’t there – only MS specific solutions)
How does not supporting it a year ago change the answer to your question?
It doesn’t. The answer is yes you can.
actually the answer still is “it doesn’t support any form of open standard mail communication”, apart from pop apparently. I have an outlook.com account and i can’t find anywere the imap settings or any reference to it actually.
The help article you’ve mentioned is not for hotmail or outlook.com but for outlook web apps and ” Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Microsoft Exchange, Live@edu” only!
MS stills tries to stop users form using other services by hindering their own offerings with their proprietary crap. amazing how that has turned against them…
Fair point, I missed that.
Apparently IMAP support is coming:
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/microsoft-says-outlookcom-ima…
you really believe that?…
take your time, just find a comfortable chair to wait for it.
I believe it when it happens, until it doesn’t it hasn’t.
When you’re really in to IMAP I don’t think you should sign up for an email service that doesn’t provide it. Google’s GMail offers IMAP and a web interface.
If you really fancy a *@outlook.com address you can always sign up and set it to forward to an account that does have IMAP access.
But to me it seems outlook.com is aimed mostly at Windows desktop/mobile users and they can access it just fine.
see this faq by ed bott about outlook.com.
http://www.zdnet.com/using-the-outlook-com-preview-faq-7000001967/
Just got a little bit more interesting.