MobileNomads.info: "The (non)sense of push communication"

[Guest nickcornaglia]

I have seen articles here and on other sites about the beauty of Push email. How everyone HAS to have it. And if they don't have it....when will they get it? I am one who has never had the need for Push mail. I sync two POP3 accounts automatically every 15 minutes and personally, that is plenty fast enough for me.

While reading Iliumsoft.com's new blog, they linked to this article on modernnomads.info that raises the same question I do. "Is Push Mail really worth it?"

"It is amazing how much hype is generated around push e-mail, where there is no real added business value. It is just a technocratic show off and its only benefit is that it will provide some stress relief for e-mail addicts."

The above quote may not truely define what the article is all about as it does detail some of the positives of Push eMail as well, such as automatic OTA synchronization of Contact, Calendar and Tasks.

Give it a read and discuss your thoughts.

http://www.modernnomads.info/articles/read.php?article_id=7

[Guest chucky.egg]

I wouldn't say anyone has to have it, but for me there are real benefits to it.

Last week,whilst I was on leave, a colleague emailed me something just before he left work, but I needed more info. Without Direct Push I probably wouldn't have got it in time to reply before he left - and my project would have been delayed by a week.

Before I had it I thought I didn't need it - the same way I thought Bluetooth was unnecessary when I had IrDA.

It's not the Holy Grail. but the convenience and instant-ness of Push has without question helped me.

[Guest Webreaper]

Last week,whilst I was on leave, a colleague emailed me something just before he left work, but I needed more info. Without Direct Push I probably wouldn't have got it in time to reply before he left - and my project would have been delayed by a week.

Hmmm. If it was that important, why not just 'phone the guy? ;) :)

I have to say, I agree, can't understand the need for it. It's only really the same as send-receiving regularly anyway....

[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

Personally timing isnt a key factor for me, like encece a regular check period on pop3 is perfectly adequate. However what DO like about exchange email is keeping my PC/laptop/smartphone/ppc all synced when i read, reply or delete an email. Fantastic!

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Amen to that Mono.

I love the fact if I blat my phone, get a new phone or whatever, contacts, calendar, mail etc. etc. are back on in no time at all.

I'm a push mail junkie now tho, thank goodness for flat rate GPRS!

P

[Guest Sonicr360]

Personally, I completely agree with Paul. You need a Mail Server to get the most out of this.

Is it REALLY worth the extra costs? Probably not!!

For Business customers... again I do not see the real benefit. If you have POP3 accounts configured, is it REALLY REALLY that hard to initiate a SEND/RECEIVE???? Come on!! dont be lazy or ignorant that you NEED push Email because "you needed more info".

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever heard of a telephone??? a TELEPHONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Sometimes it really does amaze me why people believe we need this type of technology. Its as if they rely on this MORE than their right arm.

So.... whats more important to you.... push email or losing a part of your body you really rely on?

Finally, if you run a Mail Server (Exchange) you can use a POP3 connector and some allow you to retrieve emails in 2, 3, 5, 10 in fact any schedule you want!!

In summary.... Do I use it? NO! will I use it? NO!

Is there a real requirement for it, or is Microsoft simply using it as competition against the RIM's?

A question we can all answer...!

[Guest chucky.egg]

Hmmm. If it was that important, why not just 'phone the guy? ;) :)

That's the point - without Push Email I wouldn't have known to call him, or at very least was unlikely to catch him in the office before he left for his holiday.

With Push Email I knew within a few seconds (of him sending the email) that he'd finished, but I also knew that there was more info I needed. A few seconds typing my reply meant that my project didn't stall

[Guest chucky.egg]

Personally, I completely agree with Paul. You need a Mail Server to get the most out of this.

Is it REALLY worth the extra costs? Probably not!!

For Business customers... again I do not see the real benefit. If you have POP3 accounts configured, is it REALLY REALLY that hard to initiate a SEND/RECEIVE???? Come on!! dont be lazy or ignorant that you NEED push Email because "you needed more info".

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever heard of a telephone??? a TELEPHONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Sometimes it really does amaze me why people believe we need this type of technology. Its as if they rely on this MORE than their right arm.

So.... whats more important to you.... push email or losing a part of your body you really rely on?

Finally, if you run a Mail Server (Exchange) you can use a POP3 connector and some allow you to retrieve emails in 2, 3, 5, 10 in fact any schedule you want!!

In summary.... Do I use it? NO! will I use it? NO!

Is there a real requirement for it, or is Microsoft simply using it as competition against the RIM's?

A question we can all answer...!

Entitled to your opinion, but wrong on many counts IMO

Compare it to voice calls - how about every 15 minutes your phone bleeps to say you missed a call 12 minutes ago. How convenient would that be, and why shouldn't email be as "instant" as SMS and voice calls?

[Guest Dr Who]

and why shouldn't email be as "instant" as SMS and voice calls?

From someone who has never used Push and has no need of the service that is as succinctly put an argument as I have seen in favour of Push email. Why not indeed?

[Guest dearsina]

Luddite rhetorical questions of necessity have no place in a forum for mobile technology. We should be asking

[Guest rsearley]

I accept support requests and sales orders by email, whilst near a pc i used to check email every 5 minutes or so, which meant my pc was running virtually all the time,

this extended into a habit of ritually checking email whereever i was.

now that i have push mail, i can fairly much leave the pc off, and my constant need to do a manual send receive has gone away, i can wait for the messages to apear on the phone, then decide if i need to power up the pc or not

for some i can see that it is not essential, but like most things it has its benefits

[Guest Jasonkruys]

Luddite rhetorical questions of necessity have no place in a forum for mobile technology. We should be asking

[Guest Socrates]

I use it every single day, and it's crucial to my business.

Most of my customers now contact me with suport problems by email rather than phone, and it's simply made things far more efficient and profitable.

[Guest Socrates]

Hmmm. If it was that important, why not just 'phone the guy? ;) :)

I have to say, I agree, can't understand the need for it. It's only really the same as send-receiving regularly anyway....

I can't always pick up the phone and talk to a customer while I'm sitting in a different customer's office running the meter on their billing. However I can glace at my email and see if it's an emergency or not.

Plus I also prefer to have customers underlings leave a paper trail of EXACTLY what they told me rather than having them go go their boss later and play he said she said when they forget to describe the problem correctly to me over the phone.

Edited July 10, 2006 by Socrates

[Guest jimbouk]

Some superb points made above - apart from the guy who said we dont need it and he wont ever use it.

I wonder if he said the same about digital clocks and has an old fashioned clock by his bed. If so I wonder if he finds it frustrating if he wants to check the time in the middle of the night, he has to turn the light on so he can see the clockface?

Setting your device to sync/send-receive every 15 minutes is fine - but if there are no emails then it has a data cost for no benefit and potentially a 29 minute lag (as mentioned above) - as this could be the difference between meeting/exceeding a customers expectations and getting/keeping the business, I am all for it.

I run my own business. I pay

[Guest adchaffey]

Compare it to voice calls - how about every 15 minutes your phone bleeps to say you missed a call 12 minutes ago. How convenient would that be, and why shouldn't email be as "instant" as SMS and voice calls?

I was having this exact discussion with a friend the other day. That's a great point chucky.egg, and the best argument I've heard so far.

On the other hand, I've actually resorted to closing outlook and only sending/receiving mail 2/3 times during the day and feel I've massively increased my productivity by not being interrupted every 10 minutes by more spam ! Then again, push email is a new technology/toy, so I'm bound to change my mind and accept it soon enough ;-)

Edited July 10, 2006 by adchaffey

[Guest nickcornaglia]

"We should be asking

[Guest Socrates]

null

Edited July 11, 2006 by Socrates

[Guest jimbouk]

...If Comcast or my office offered synchronization via an exchange server...I'd probably jump on it. It just seems so difficult and burdensome to find an appropriate Exchange service that is easy to use and second nature to set up.

Maybe it's my ignorance on this subject that causes my reluctance. I understand that there are free services out there, but that doesn't seem private enough for me. (Not that anyone wants to read my boring calendar and task list). But on the face, without my own server...it seems I'd need to forward my comcast mail to another server in order to get it on my phone. Is this correct?

Incoming Mail > Comcast Mail > Outside Hosted Exchange Server > My phone

Is that correct?

I don't know what I don't know. Tell me I wrong. Show my the beauty of Push. Just don't tell me I need it because it's there.

Its actually very simple. If you rent an exchange mailbox, you can set it up to collect all your mail from your other account for you, or you can auto-forward your pop mail - or domain owners can point their MX record to their exchange server.

As Exchange, WM5 and Activesync are all MS apps, the set up on your pc and device is dead simple - 4smartphone will even give you a download to set it all up for you. Otherwise you just add the exchange server account on your pc's outlook and in activesync.

[Guest Swampie]

Personally, I like not having to reply to emails immediately. Not getting a phone call 2 minutes after the email was sent asking why I hadn't replied.

Believe it or not, I don't like phones. The only person I call is my wife. The only person who calls me is my wife. I like it that way. :)

The thing I hate about phones is that they're rude.

You can be having a conversation with someone, and someone phones you. The caller is interrupting you, but if you ignore them they get annoyed. Most people would take the call and ask the other guy you're talking to to wait. This is rude. I'd not expect someone to walk down stairs, barge into a conversation and interrupt - but with phone calls they do it all the time, and expect you to pick up.

But that's just me, a lowly software developer who's been brought up on technology from an early age...

Edited July 11, 2006 by Swampie

[Guest gilesjuk]

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever heard of a telephone??? a TELEPHONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I guess push email is a sort of modern replacement for a pager. Of course a text message will do, it's just it's easier typing messages on a PC.

[Guest chucky.egg]

...Most people would take the call and ask the other guy you're talking to to wait...

Personally I use the "Hang up" button to send them to voicemail

What would be neat would be to be able to add a "Subject" to a voice call, like you do with email, so the recipient of the call can say "Nah, that's not important to me right now", or "Oh yes, I need to take this call"

[Guest Sonicr360]

Push Email could of course be "seen" as an alternative to a pager... of course an email can be much longer than a 15 - 30 character message! Aka SMS (which we all know about!) Yes its instant, it works, cheap too!

I use a Server for collecting / sending emails, and its configure to retrieve emails every few mins, and it works. I could setup Push Email, but I do not see any real lneed for it. My Emails are required for Support / Consultancy ect and it works fine with my WM5 device. Again there are others that may not use it for this type of setup, and hence no need for push email. Thats not to say I can use it, because I can and its all ready to go, but I just do not need it. And its certainly never stopped me offering a service to customers because of the "lack" of Push Email.

But to say its so essential that you need information from someone as they are going on leave really does beg the question "why not use a phone" or another method.

Sometimes we rely on too much Technology, which was the point I was trying to make. What if you were stranded in the middle of nowhere and your PPC Battery died and have no way of charging.... what would you do..... sit there or use some iniative?

I still see this service as a "late comer" to RIM's (Aka blackberry). However, to some its probably a god-send and means you have a service you always dreamed of !!!! :)

Still, each to their own me thinks! and I agree, if it was not for all of our comments and opinions, devices and services like PPC, Smartphones and even the soon to hit up (UMPC) and the NEXT version of the Windows OS Mobile Software would not be in development :D

BTW, please do NOT take things so seriously guys; My sister having cancer and the loss of her leg is FAR FAR more important that a discussion about the NEED for Push Email.

There are more important things out there to consider ;)

Thanks again.

[Guest Sonicr360]

I use it every single day, and it's crucial to my business.

Most of my customers now contact me with suport problems by email rather than phone, and it's simply made things far more efficient and profitable.

Profitable.... hmmm unsure where you get that from, but if it works !!

S.

[Guest chucky.egg]

But to say its so essential that you need information from someone as they are going on leave really does beg the question "why not use a phone" or another method.

I explained that a few posts back.

Voice calls are not always the best way to do things. Phone a friend and explain how to change your PCs IP address. They might remember the process, they might even understand it, but will they be able to repeat it later?

We also have an unwritten policy that you don't call colleagues when they are on leave - you send an email. That way if they want to pick it up they can, but you're not interrupting their time off.

I guess it goes back to to what Swampie was saying about people being rude and answering calls whilst in a conversation. You do have the option to ignore emails and calls.

With the technology comes some duty - to be courteous and respectful of those around you.

...please do NOT take things so seriously guys...

There are more important things out there to consider

True, but nobody is getting too serious IMO and this topic is about this issue