Evo in a corporate setting...

[iMatter]

Hey guys/gals. I've had the Droid since launch day as my personal phone and I absolutely love it. At my job, our contract with Tmobile is up here pretty soon, and we are looking to move to Sprint to save some money. We have one Evo right now that Sprint is letting us test drive.

How do you all think the Evo would do in a corporate setting? Currently we all have BlackBerry's. They work decent, but we are looking for a change. Personally, I don't know that I can trust a phone with such a beast of a screen to last all day. In our corporate office we are sending/receiving e-mail all day, on the phones quite often, in short we use our phones at all times. Especially when in the field.

Anyone here have experience with using the Evo in a corporate/business setting? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[charliegrs]

While I have no experience with using the EVO in the corporate setting, I have to say Im pretty sure the blackberry is straight up designed for it. Hows the battery life on the blackberry? Because with the EVO, it may not be enough for you. The new update has dramatically increased the battery life on the EVO but Im guessing its still not as good as a blackberry. Plus, you may be used to typing emails on a physical keyboard, in which case the EVO may take some getting used to {it did for me coming from a palm pre} Dont get me wrong, I love my EVO but I use I dont use it for business just pleasure and its well known that BBs are awesome business phones.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

They work amazing.

I got my google phone attached to our corporate email and everything, and our IT department is REALLY strict so the fact they let it on is great.

Look at "Good for Enterprise"...its what we use and you can set it up to auto lock via password after like 5 mins of not using it so even if the phone is lost it cant be viewed unlike the iPhone that requires an entire key code lock every time ..

http://www.good.com/android/

It works great, much better than my iPhone. You can actually do attachments, set OOP messages, etc...like an actual computer

 

[IIJBII]

Hey guys/gals. I've had the Droid since launch day as my personal phone and I absolutely love it. At my job, our contract with Tmobile is up here pretty soon, and we are looking to move to Sprint to save some money. We have one Evo right now that Sprint is letting us test drive.

How do you all think the Evo would do in a corporate setting? Currently we all have BlackBerry's. They work decent, but we are looking for a change. Personally, I don't know that I can trust a phone with such a beast of a screen to last all day. In our corporate office we are sending/receiving e-mail all day, on the phones quite often, in short we use our phones at all times. Especially when in the field.

Anyone here have experience with using the Evo in a corporate/business setting? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

How is the one you are testing working out? I have both the BB Tour and the EVO. I think they both are great phones, depending on what you expect from them. I agree with others regaring battery life. My Tour beats the EVO hands down but that's not to say I can't get a full day from my EVO. I tend to do more on my EVO so I expect the drain to be greater on the battery. I think the biggest thing to get use to is no physical keyboard but with the size of the EVO I didn't find it an issue at all. I say demo a few but make sure you are clear on what you want/need. It's hard just to compare this device to a BB without specifics because they do have some differences.

Also, sounds like you may already have an opinion on the EVo based on your statement about trusting a beast pf a phone.

 

[bclinger#IM]

For me it works fine; however, as I do a lot of emails and data input using Excel spreadsheets, I just gotta whine about the keyboard - hate it. I am getting a bit more comfy every day, but sending something out takes much more time than when I was using the TP2. Size & screen though is great.

 

[pwnst_r]

Battery-wise, it won't hold up as well as a blackberry. Honestly, if your folks are used to a physical qwerty, that's a pretty big change for them. Exchange works well, although my company is waiting for the Froyo release because of some security concerns.

 

[iMatter]

They work amazing.

I got my google phone attached to our corporate email and everything, and our IT department is REALLY strict so the fact they let it on is great.

Look at "Good for Enterprise"...its what we use and you can set it up to auto lock via password after like 5 mins of not using it so even if the phone is lost it cant be viewed unlike the iPhone that requires an entire key code lock every time ..

Good on Android

It works great, much better than my iPhone. You can actually do attachments, set OOP messages, etc...like an actual computer

Good Enterprise looks pretty promising, ill have to pass along a link to my IT Director. Thanks for the suggestion.

How is the one you are testing working out? I have both the BB Tour and the EVO. I think they both are great phones, depending on what you expect from them. I agree with others regaring battery life. My Tour beats the EVO hands down but that's not to say I can't get a full day from my EVO. I tend to do more on my EVO so I expect the drain to be greater on the battery. I think the biggest thing to get use to is no physical keyboard but with the size of the EVO I didn't find it an issue at all. I say demo a few but make sure you are clear on what you want/need. It's hard just to compare this device to a BB without specifics because they do have some differences.

Also, sounds like you may already have an opinion on the EVo based on your statement about trusting a beast pf a phone.

The one we have is working pretty decent, its definitely an upgrade. Much better than our outdated BB Pearls... The biggest thing will be the learning curve for our 50 emloyees with phones that will (possibly) be going from BB to Android.


One of the reasons we want to try out the Android platform is because of its open-ness. We are trying to get a phone that will be ahead of the game or at the same level of everything else on the market for at least the coming year, and with BlackBerry, its just so outdated compared to everything else (or so it seems). The ability to browse the web is far better with the Android platform.

Keep the suggestions / comments coming, they are greatly appreciated.

 

[solo1]

Hey guys/gals. I've had the Droid since launch day as my personal phone and I absolutely love it. At my job, our contract with Tmobile is up here pretty soon, and we are looking to move to Sprint to save some money. We have one Evo right now that Sprint is letting us test drive.

How do you all think the Evo would do in a corporate setting? Currently we all have BlackBerry's. They work decent, but we are looking for a change. Personally, I don't know that I can trust a phone with such a beast of a screen to last all day. In our corporate office we are sending/receiving e-mail all day, on the phones quite often, in short we use our phones at all times. Especially when in the field.

Anyone here have experience with using the Evo in a corporate/business setting? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I am sure that we can all agree that the EVO can hold its own in tech specs in the corporate world ... However in the fast pace environment of corporate America one cannot be worried about the battery life ... And the EVO is known for not having quite the longevity as lets say the BB ... Mind you if its a corporate phone all the battery draining elements may be pulled off such as Friendstream ... excessive unapproved apps and gaming ... Like everyone else has pointed out that the physical keyboard for BB users is going to be a huge learning curve ... I say depending on how corporate your operation is will determine whether this phone is for you ... it can definitely keep you highly connected and even has the ability to accept internal company software and apps but it does come with an unpredictable battery life.

 

[FractalSphere]

I'm a contractor at my company and decided (with permission of course) to load up the company exchange mail on my Evo, and it's been working fine. They weren't going to issue me a blackberry, which I was fine with, so it made sense. There's no pushmail on it, but checking every hour on peak hours is fine. Calendar, email, contacts all synced up no issues.

I'm now the official 'android guy' at work, a job addition that I am FINE with, as the blackberry service is already with Sprint, it's a no brainer for them to want to move their people to Android phones. I think the Evo is a little consumer-centric for hard core business use, and while the push-to-talk feature (I am personally GLAD it does not have it) is a desirable for some folks, it might keep them off the Evo.

Battery life is the biggie here tho. I can't see execs remembering or being able to charge it up in the afternoons, and then it'd be a sh*tstorm in the evening if it dies on them.

 

[4mooo]

Works well enough with Exchange, as long as users don't use inbox subfolders with rules set up to route incoming emails to those subfolders (instead of just to the inbox). Evo does not have notifications for emails directed to inbox subfolders nor does it automatically sync to these folders. You would have to manually sync each folder to retrieve any new emails.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

I much prefer my Evo to my BB. But I'm not a typical corporate "executive." I'm a Sr. Manager who's also more than a bit of a geek. As far as your concerns:

It took me a while, but I absolutely prefer the landscape keyboard on the Evo to the keyboard on the BB. (Then again, I've never been particularly fond of the KB on the BB: They're too flat and too closely spaced; the Palm Treo keyboard is far better, IMHO.) I'm now faster and more accurate on the Evo.

Battery life is nowhere near as good as a BB. I can easily get 12 hours, but I'm not a particularly heavy user. No matter what you do, it'll never match the BB.

Exchange email: works fine for me, with the caveats 4mooo addresses. In fact, I prefer the htc email client to the email client on BB.

Exchange Calendar: There's no nice way to say it. The Calendar on the Evo sucks. 3rd party calendars suck less, but none of them are great. (And yes, I've tried Jorte, and given a quick look at Pure.)

One approach to EAS is the Touchdown app, which I think does better integration, but has some issues of its own.

I think how execs will react to it will depend a whole lot on the execs. If they're kinda techy, the kind who would use an iPhone for their personal phone, you may get away with it. Otherwise, probably not. Yet. Android and its apps need a couple more generations of improvement.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Just FYI Good for Enterprise does push exchange.

And their calendar and widgets are nice.

The calendar looks basically exactly like outlook.

I am not sure about Good for You, it looks like you can demo it. Looks like a personal version if its not pushed down to you through corporate, or their government version.

 

[FractalSphere]

Works well enough with Exchange, as long as users don't use inbox subfolders with rules set up to route incoming emails to those subfolders (instead of just to the inbox). Evo does not have notifications for emails directed to inbox subfolders nor does it automatically sync to these folders. You would have to manually sync each folder to retrieve any new emails.

I have Outlook set to use server-side rules and when I look in the folders to view mail, it'll auto-sync to current when I view the folder in question.

That solved my folder/rules issue on corporate inboxes.

 

[kennycrudup]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the EVO E-mail standard client does do push from Exchange. I get my clients' E-mails as soon as I hear the chime come off the desktop Windows machine.

 

[4mooo]

I have Outlook set to use server-side rules and when I look in the folders to view mail, it'll auto-sync to current when I view the folder in question.

That solved my folder/rules issue on corporate inboxes.

That is the problem. You have to view each folder manually to sync. If you have serveral folders that get emails continually, it is such a pain.

 

[iMatter]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. Hopefully we will have a decision here in the next week or so!

 

[npark]

Hey guys/gals. I've had the Droid since launch day as my personal phone and I absolutely love it. At my job, our contract with Tmobile is up here pretty soon, and we are looking to move to Sprint to save some money. We have one Evo right now that Sprint is letting us test drive.

How do you all think the Evo would do in a corporate setting? Currently we all have BlackBerry's. They work decent, but we are looking for a change. Personally, I don't know that I can trust a phone with such a beast of a screen to last all day. In our corporate office we are sending/receiving e-mail all day, on the phones quite often, in short we use our phones at all times. Especially when in the field.

Anyone here have experience with using the Evo in a corporate/business setting? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

In the context for work/enterprise IT supported email, an Android phone with HTC Sense right now is better than any other Android option. Meaning, the Evo and its HTC brethren have a leg up out of the box, and I say this from my personal experience and from the feature support with remote wipe and other EAS feature support on the phone client.

You haven't mentioned anything about the IT infrastructure backend for your organization, so I'll assume you're not too clear on the details. There are a few ways that your organization could have deployed blackberrys depending on the size of the organization:

1) In-house BES server
2) Rely on t-mo/RIM for BIS
3) Some email solution and use pop/desktop redirectors

Since 3 is highly unlikely in an enterprise setting, I'll assume you have options #1 or #2. In that case, I think that switching AWAY from Blackberry is probably a far fetched case. I cannot see an organization managing to convince all relevant stakeholders to switch from a Blackberry to some other solution. That's highly unlikely.

In all likelihood, your organization is considering going with Sprint instead of t-mo for data/phone (and/or BIS). In which case, the discussion about Blackberry vs. Android is moot... in all likelihood, your company will continue to have Blackberrys supported and deployed for most people.

Your organization may choose to support Android phones IN ADDITION to Blackberrys. For PUSH email, this requires either Exchange Active Sync (if your company has Exchange servers and OWA, then you already have EAS support--it probably requires IT to click the button to turn it on) or Gmail IMAP push. There's nothing wrong with that, and in-fact I use my Evo with my company's EAS and I'm very happy with it. My company, a fortune 500 with 50k employees, recently started to "officially" support Android phones (although, one could have at anytime obtained their own phone... any phone... and setup their EAS client) and a lot of people are happy with it.

I used to work in IT support, and the one thing I learned is... simpler is better. Less to support, is less work. The more that is supported, the more idiotic things users will do. Enabling EAS support means tacitly allowing iPhones, Andriod phones, Palm phones, in fact EVERY OTHER PHONE OUT THERE to use mobile email. This, while a good thing for the end user, is something that from an enterprise consideration must be taken into account. Can the existing infrastructure (since usually the OWA server, and server handling EAS is the same, at smaller enterprises this can also mean the same box as the Exchange server) handle the additional load (since the BES or BIS will not be)? Can helpdesk/support folks handle the additional support requirements? Which phone platforms to officially support along with enabling EAS? Only Android? All of them? No official support, get it at your own risk?

For an enterprise, there's a lot more cost considerations that go into supporting a phone. It's a different question from the simple, "Does it work? Can it work?" type of questioning. There's a CBA consideration that any IT manager/stakeholder will pursue, as well as a the, "why break what is not broken" consideration. "Can the phone battery last all day? (and mine lasts about 36 hours)" is actually a pretty minor concern because that is easily solvable--either make the settings such that it will last all day, or get a phone that will (maybe the Epic? who knows, doesn't matter...).

 

[npark]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the EVO E-mail standard client does do push from Exchange. I get my clients' E-mails as soon as I hear the chime come off the desktop Windows machine.

Yes, you need to setup Exchange Active Sync (which is the feature/interface on the Exchange server) that supports this push functionality. Actually, any phone that supports EAS will have push email. This means, iPhone, Android, Palm, etc.

There's Blackberry push email (BIS or BES), and Exchange Active Sync push email (EAS). Naturally, only a Blackberry will support BIS or BES.

Edit: Oh... and there's Gmail push (IMAP), for any enterprises that use "Google Apps for your domain". There is also Gmail EAS push (not very known, and probably even fewer that use it). Any phone that supports any of the above email interfaces will support push email.

 

[dwaynewilliams#WN]

I would be surprised to see an EVO in the corporate setting. Mo one Qik be getting their work don't with that in their hands. I am constantly on my EVO; can't put it down. I hope that the others at your company have more restraint than I do.

 

[RC46]

I work for a large corporation and we have our choice of Blackberry or any phone that can use the Good server. Good works very well and seems to get better with each update.

Most IT departments worth their salt will not let an Android phone connect directly to a exchange server because Android lacks many of the important security policies. Good supports all the policies that my company requires.