HTC Magic and ActiveSync?

Android (Google’s Smartphone platform) has shown itself to be quite a popular solution set for geeks all over the world.  The one thing it really didn’t have that it really did need was Exchange ActiveSync support.  Without it, corporations couldn’t sync email down to the device with a push-style system.  Granted, 3rd-party software can (mostly) reproduce the effect of ActiveSync, but without a native solution, there will always be supportability issues when Exchange is updated, you switch to a new version of the Server, etc.

So, it was a bit of a shock to hear the rumors about T-Mobile’s new Android-based phone (the HTC Magic) would support Exchange sync natively.  After all, Google has officially stated that Android does not support Exchange ActiveSync, and so the Magic should have not had this functionality.  Plain as day, though, there are multiple photos of the HTC Magic with the Android OS, but clearly showing that it could be set up to perform Exchange syncing.  So what gives?

The short answer is that Google isn’t the one who built the functionality into that particular phone.  While it is based on Android, it is not a “Google Experience” phone. In other words, HTC opted to forgo the logo certification on that device, in order to put in their own software layered on top of Android.  That means that among other stuff, ActiveSync is now part of that build.

In the Windows Mobile world, this isn’t unusual.  As long as the base configuration is logo-certified, the vendor (and the service provider, for that matter) can jam in any other feature sets that they want.  For example, the HTC S743 comes pre-loaded with a few HTC-only apps that add some nifty interface enhancements, and the Sprint version of the HTC Smartphones comes with so much stuff pre-loaded that it hardly looks like Windows Mobile anymore.

In the Android world, this is apparently not a normal thing. I personally do not have a lot of experience with Android, but from what I have seen, if you alter the base image too much, you risk losing the little “Google Experience” tag.  HTC and T-Mobile previously didn’t alter all that much, which is why a T-Mobile Android phone looks about the same as any other. For the Magic (or 3D), the alterations were enough to get the logo pulled, judging from the publicity photos.

So it’s a trade-off, either you go fully logo-compliant, or you get enterprise email and messaging.  If Android is really aimed for the enterprise market, I’d go with the ActiveSync technology.  Google and Microsoft have not always gotten along, but then again neither did Microsoft and Apple, but it didn’t stop them from getting ActiveSync on the iPhone.  C’mon Google, let ActiveSync in (officially) and let the corporate world run with the Android platform.