A recent conversation with a coworker about my new iPhone revolved around how it works with Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology. That’s right - Apple’s cell phone baby relies on Microsoft technology! Crazy, I know. ActiveSync handles synchronization and allows you (or you business users) to sync email, calendar, and contacts directly with an email server, which, it just so happens, must be Microsoft’s Exchange server.

Both my coworker and I have traditionally used Windows Mobile-based devices (my most recent was the Samsung BlackJack), so we are more familiar with ActiveSync than many people. If you use Windows XP and plug your Windows Mobile phone or PDA to your computer for syncing, then you have to have ActiveSync installed. It’s a program you can download and install for free, and it allows you to sync your email, calendar, contacts, notes, internet bookmarks, and even files between the mobile device and the desktop. That version of ActiveSync, though is not the same as the version that is installed on the actual mobile device and which can communicate directly with the email (Exchange) server.

That distinction is wherein our confusion lays - we both assumed that ActiveSync support meant you could sync the iPhone with your desktop PC without using iTunes. As all iPhone users know, though, that’s not the case. You must use iTunes to sync your iPhone with the desktop. It handles syncing email, calendar, and contacts (in addition to media).

What the iPhone does support is ActiveSync over the air - that’s how Apple makes use of the Microsoft technology. As recent InfoWorld article points out, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to set up, even if you are using Exchange email servers and have a willing IT department to configure the server, give you access, and tell you what address to connect the phone to. What you get is “push” email technology, in addition to untethered syncing. Push email means that your phone doesn’t reactively go out and look for email - as soon as you get a new email, the phone is told about the email and lets you know. This is sort of functionality that makes BlackBerry devices so attractive and useful for so many corporate-types (though the BlackBerry, by RIM, doesn’t use Microsoft software) who go through email likes a chain-smoker goes through cigarettes.

The iPhone not only does not sync with the desktop through ActiveSync, it won’t sync notes, web bookmarks, or whatever files you want, even through iTunes. It does, of course, do a great job of handling phone calls, email, internet, and a bazillion other things, now that you can download/buy custom-built applications on it. That’s why I now have one.

The only other annoying thing I’ve seen with regard to how the iPhone handles syncing is that if you do sync over the air with an Exchange server, you have to use the \ instead of the / when you type in domain/username - at least I did. When I used domain\username, my account appeared to be set up fine, but upon a few sync attempts, my account then was locked out, which required a couple of calls to my IT department, which nobody wanted.

Anybody else experienced other syncing weirdness or difficulty?