Just seen this: Official Google Blog: Winter cleaning
I don't use google services but for those who do, this is just crap. Exchange Active Sync may not be "open source" but it is much better than the "open" alternatives google are pushing.
1) Supports full push emails
2) Supports business settings (i.e. encryption, require passcodes, etc...)
3) Supports remote device wiping
I'm just glad I'm using outlook.com/office 365/exchange and Windows Phone 8.
Windows Phone 8 users had better setup GMail before the end of January, otherwise they will have to pay for a Google Apps account or hope Microsoft come up with a solution.
For Windows Phone users, the news out of Google today couldn't be much worse.
The company announced it's removing support for Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync protocol for new devices from 30th January 2013. Google Apps for business accounts will be unaffected and existing devices that are setup to sync mail, calendar, and contacts will work fine, but new devices will not be able to use the Exchange ActiveSync protocol with Gmail. It's a big blow to Windows Phone and part of a bigger feud between the companies over the past few months.
For iOS, Google's email solution is IMAP support and a dedicated Gmail app, CalDAV for calendar, and CardDAV for contacts. Apple and Google both support CalDAV and CardDAV natively, but Microsoft has chosen not to support either standard in Windows Phone 8… yet. This leaves Windows Phone users in a tricky position: at present, they’re offered two choices to set up a Google account. You can pick between email only or a combination of email, calendar, and contacts. The email-only option will set up an IMAP connection to Gmail which won't support push — it’ll sync every 15 minutes at best. The second option with calendar and contacts lets Windows Phone 8 users setup a Gmail connection using Exchange ActiveSync, with push email, calendars, and contacts. This solution will cease working from January 30th for new devices, leaving Microsoft little over a month to provide an acceptable alternative for end users.
Google is not providing a Gmail app for Windows Phone users, and the company recently revealed it has "no plans to build out Windows apps" beyond a search app available on Windows 8 and Windows Phone. (Source)
This is where oss pissed me off, there is a far better solution but they chose to use the rubbish one thanks to politics.
Urgh! I use it with my free google apps account to sync contacts with my iPhone. Looks like i will be switching to Office 365.
Money and politics. I assume Google have to license active sync from MS.Originally Posted by SYNACK
They just replaced a set of proprietary and licensed standards with open ones. (Nothing whatsoever to do with open source BTW). MS could easily implement IMAP,caldav,cardav if they wanted to and run it alongside exchange protocols - most other systems use other open standards so it would make sense to support it. I can't see why it would affect Google account to iPhone sync as apple supports and used the open protocols (I think they wrote some of it). it will be a bigger problem for ms users
iPhone users wont get push without having to install the crappy app btw as I dont think it supports IDLE (which is inferior/slow according to reports)
This is purely a childish move by google and its to be expected...
This will mean o365 gets a boost along with Outlook.com as activsync is supported on a HUGE amount of phones new and old.
If MS is smart they will come out with a "migrate to outlook.com" page which moves the data out of google and into outlook along with contacts etc.
How do you know that? Perhaps MS massively raised the licensing costs for ActivSync, perhaps MS threatened to sue on a patent infringement. Like you say - Office 365 will get a boost because of this so it will likely play out in MS's favor. I don't see why you'd bash Google for not offering support for exchanges proprietary protocols when MS don't offer support for the caldav/carddav standards that virtually every other system uses? They could do it in conjunction with their proprietary stuff unless they were being childish too?
CalDav has been in iOS since 3.0 and carddav since ios4.
source:
CalDAV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CardDAV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm not really sure what the fuss is about - like the OP said the advanced features are really only for business settings, remote wiping etc which Google apps does anyway. This isn't going to affect that many people at all - only the handful of windows phone users like yourself who only get the windows phone because of a love for MS aren't likely to be using googles services anyway.
Netman (17th December 2012)
I didn't get a Windows Phone out of love for MS, granted their software is better than most but I really got it as I didn't want google knowing everything I was doing, and the iPhone hasn't changed since it first came out.
1 protocol that does everything for 3 that do it but not very well. CalDAV and CardDAV don't do push, IMAP not so well, EAS does all 3 and more without. EAS even supports backing up text messages to the server automatically, no 3rd part app needed, my old Windows Mobile phone used to do that 5 years ago.
Google Apps doesn't do it anyway in my experience! To set up any phone except an Android phone, you have to use the exchange protocol in order to use the business stuff like remote wiping.
The exchange protocols are still available for business (and education users) and you can't do that on gapps without a business or education account anyway. Its only really a problem for home Google users on windows phones and that phone has such a miniscule market share that hardly any ones going to be bothered unless they are trying to use the issue as an argument to bash google.
Its akin to MS not supporting silver light on linux, and no one really cares about that.
No....
its not the same, or everyone cares about silverlight?
It's more like Apple removing support for Flash, there was a defacto standard that did everything relatively well when used right and they are pulling that as opposed to Silverlight that did not have huge usage and installed footprint. EAS is in so many phones and is the best protocol for active email accounts with push, calanders etc. as it does it all in one protocol. IMAP is ancient and although it does support rudimentary push for email it is badly implemented if at all by most installations and many clients. As EAS has been mature for push stuff for longer so the client devices support it better.
Last edited by SYNACK; 16th December 2012 at 11:31 AM.
That is a much better analogy. In the same way that Google didn't have any control over adobe pulling flash support for Android, they don't have any control over how MS license EAS. ActiveSync is still usable on paid for google business services (and educational) you just don't get it for free on free accounts.
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