Gizmodo and GearLive are reporting that the iPhone 2.0 firmware will go golden master (locked for shipping) this week. Golden master does not necessarily mean that Apple will ship the firmware this week (after all, Steve said that it would ship in "early July") but it does mean that the firmware and all the features are complete and ready to head out the door.

Both sites seem to agree with the build number on the new firmware: 345. Gizmodo is reporting that 2.0 will boast code signing and a new encryption feature. The iPhone firmware 2.0 is definitely something on every iPhone owner's wishlist, and here's mine (you have one of these, right?):

1. Super Monkey Ball (AppStore)
2. New Mail features
3. iWork support in Mail
4. Exchange support
5. MobileMe support
6. Super Monkey Ball (did I mention this one already?)
7. Scientific Calculator (would it be too hard to add a graphing calculator? c'mon, Apple!)

While we wait around the virtual campfire for the next version of the iPhone software, what are you most looking forward to in the new firmware? I think everyone can guess what my favorite feature will be; although I am still waiting for Final Cut Studio 2 for iPhone (we've been hearing rumors that it will be in the 10th generation device).

A German site, Apfeltalk.de has posted screenshots of the forthcoming version of Mac OS X, 10.6 (a.k.a "Snow Leopard"). Most of the screenshots show off the Safari 4 developer preview that will include the "Save as Web Application" option in the File menu.

The website also shows off the next version of Address Book.app that will bring Microsoft Exchange support to the Mac platform. We do however have to speculate about the System Preferences.app screenshot that shows two Time Machine icons with one labled "Dock" and another labeled "Time Machine" -- this seems out of place and unlike Apple.

You can see all of the screenshots (before Apple's legal team gets a hold of them) on the Apfeltalk.de site.

[via Engadget]

CIOs and IT pros pay money -- a lot of money -- for the opinions of the Gartner Group. Since I'm not shelling out $95 to buy "Gartner Changes It's iPhone Enterprise Recommendations," even though I'm sure it would be worth a giggle or two, I'll just point you to some folks who have read the new report. Short summary: author Ken Dulaney acknowledges that the circumstances leading to Gartner's original "burn it, it's a witch!" stance on the iPhone for enterprise use have changed, and with the additional support for Exchange and ActiveSync coming in June there are far fewer reasons to take a strict stand against iPhones in corporate settings.

Since Dulaney was the principal author of Gartner's first report, we commend him for sticking with the issue and setting the record straight. Now, about all those C-suite folks who already have iPhones... well, as Gartner describes the support levels required to handle idiosyncratic devices, there's "concierge," "appliance" and "platform" levels of support, with "concierge" being the most hands-on and resource-intensive (the iPhone is moving from "concierge" to "appliance" status with the June 2.0 update). How much do you want to bet that CEOs, CFOs and CIOs who go off the reservation and buy themselves iPhones and MacBook Airs are already getting, and will continue to get, "concierge"-level support from their IT departments? Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Exchange support in the iPhone has been rumored almost as long as the iPhone itself was rumored to exist. Much as the iPhone turned out to be real, so has ActiveSync on the iPhone. Microsoft released an interview with Terry Myerson, corporate vice president for Exchange, which includes a very interesting tidbit. Mr. Myserson says that Apple and Microsoft were in talks about licensing ActiveSync before the iPhone was announced. Furthermore, he was in daily contact with Apple VP Phil Schiller (when Schiller wasn't making up Apple rumors, of course) for two weeks while they set the details of the agreement between the two tech giants.

This isn't a revelation, since it stands to reason that a company in the business of selling a smart phone and another company in the business of selling technology for smart phones would work together but it is interesting nonetheless.

Today Apple announced that they have licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft to enable full Exchange integration with the iPhone. The first thing you think of with ActiveSync is Push Email (that's when email is sent to your iPhone as soon as it is received, as opposed to on a schedule like every 15 minutes). ActiveSync includes that as well as:

• Wireless calendar syncing
• Wireless contact syncing
• Remote wipe of the device if it is lost

This goes way beyond simple email, folks. This only works when you're connected to an Exchange backend though, so don't be afraid that someone can randomly wipe all the data from your iPhone.

ActiveSync will be included in the iPhone 2.0 software, available sometime in late June.

Just the other day a co-worker of mine wondered if there was a way to have Entourage (she's using 2008) automatically archive messages like Outlook does (we run Exchange on the job, which stores all your messages on the server; you run the risk of going over your quota if you don't archive things to a local mail store from time to time). I had to report that Entourage does not automatically archive (though it really should), and sadly I knew of no other automatic solution for her.

I now have a much better answer for her: Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer 1.0. It gives Entourage (2004 or 2008) the auto-archiving features that should be built in. You launch EEAO and tell it how old messages should be before they are archived, where to archive said messages to, and if you want it to run on a schedule. That's it.

Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer costs $10, though a free demo is available.

Kerio Technologies announced version 6.5 of the Kerio MailServer -- 2 years in the making -- yesterday. We talked about version 6 recently, but this is their largest update yet and clearly shows their readiness to take a bite out of the Microsoft Exchange market. With version 6.5, Kerio is providing the groupware platform and tools needed to completely replace Exchange within a collaboration-centric organization.

The release is compatible with both server and workstation flavors of OS X with full support for Leopard, in addition to being fully Microsoft certified for Vista and Redhat certified for Linux compatibility. 6.5 also includes enhanced support for Entourage 2008, making full use of message flags and "out of office" messages which are synced on both mobile and workstation clients.

The biggest change of interest to Mac users is the addition of CalDAV support. Kerio users can look up information, share and subscribe to calendars and achieve 2-way sync whether they're on a Mac, an iPhone, a Palm or Windows Mobile handheld, a PC ... you get the idea. The server can provide a bridge between open and proprietary standards, making sure that you see the same data everywhere and allowing for smooth cross-platform interoperability.

The other major improvement, definitely of interest to users in multi-platform environments, is an upgrade to the Outlook Connector with a complete rewrite of its underlying database structure. It allows for easy data access, online and offline, with current and older versions of Outlook. And its full-text search capabilities search across messages, contacts and calendar events with support for Google Desktop search.

Not surprisingly, a release this big resulted in a pricing change. The standard package (10 users) now starts at $499 and adding additional users costs $20 per user. A version with integrated McAfee Anti-Virus for bi-directional scanning of all email starts at $599 and additional users are $24 each. Both versions include anti-spam, user management with authentication against Active Directory and Open Directory. Visit Kerio for more information.

Update: The US Apple Store is now carrying a base server (10 user) license and install media for Kerio MailServer with McAfee.

Among the security patches delivered with Microsoft's 11.4.0 update to Office 2004 this week, there was a fix for a subtle and deeply irritating bug that's been nipping at Exchange users for a long time. Under certain rare circumstances, Entourage users could unexpectedly and unexplainedly lose days or weeks worth of email, poof! I've personally seen this happen a handful of times over the past three years, and it's always a challenging conversation when the affected user asks "What the hell happened?" and the official reply is "Um... let me check the backups for you, mmmkay?"

TUAW reader Vermyndax, who worked with Microsoft support to track down the bug, blogged about the cause and resolution of the issue today:

The bug occurs due to a bad logic assumption. Entourage 2004 treats its local database as authoritative to the mail stored in your mailbox. As such, if the Exchange server happens to be virus-scanning your mailbox when you synchronize your mail, Exchange will refuse to allow Entourage access to the items being scanned. Since Entourage receives no information on the existence of those items, it will mark them for deletion in its local database.

On the next sync, you lose all of those items in the mailbox too. In cases we noted, users were losing large swaths of email at once (on the order of 2-3 weeks' worth all at once).

Yech. While you could recover the mail from Outlook/OWA "Deleted Items," it was a pain -- and worse if you didn't notice the problem until after your retention deadline had passed. Upgrading to 11.4.0, assuming you aren't quite ready to make the leap to Office 2008, is sounding better all the time.

Thanks Vermyndax!

When I posted about the Zimbra collaboration suite a little while ago, it was noted in the comments that, while the Zimbra client is now working in Safari 3, the server isn't yet Leopard-compatible. Kerio MailServer offers a Safari 3 and Leopard-compatible alternative with a lot of groupware functionality.

Kerio's Safari 3 compatibility stems mostly from the fact that it doesn't have a rich text editor in the client, but it works flawlessly for plain text email and the interface is as smooth and AJAXy as Zimbra's. Kerio has had a Mac version of the server since 2003, with drop-in Exchange replacement capability and the ability to sync contacts, calendars and email without the need for an external client. Kerio has even had iPhone sync since last Fall.

Kerio's pricing structure is slightly different from Zimbra's, but competitive; there's no open source Kerio version, as there is with Zimbra. But if you're in the market for a Leopard-based mail server and collaboration solution, Kerio seems to be a pretty good choice.

Even if iPhones are further into the enterprise market than some might think (or desire), the lack of native non-IMAP support for Exchange accounts on the device has given some users and their IT departments pause. While there are some solid third-party options coming along (Visto and SyncML among others), only an Apple-blessed solution is going to satisfy in the end. Is there progress on the home front? Chadwick sent along a link via ModMyiPhone.com to an Apple job posting for a QA engineer:

The iPhone Quality team is looking for a motivated, highly-technical Exchange test/sync engineer with excellent problem solving and communication skills. You will join a dynamic team responsible for qualifying the latest iPhone products. Your focus will be testing Exchange and Outlook functionality with Apple's innovative new phone. The successful candidate will complete both documented and adhoc testing to ensure high quality releases.

Hiring a QA engineer implies that the Exchange connector code under development is getting ready for testing and release. Could an Exchange hookup for the iPhone be coming in time for Macworld Expo? Dee-lightful.

This week we've got a wide variety of questions in Ask TUAW. We go from choosing hard drives, syncing iCal with Exchange, and troubleshooting a slow MacBook Pro to rolling your own .mac, a keyboard recommendation, finding an iSyncing Verizon phone and much more. As always, please leave your questions for next week in the comments.

Now on to the show!

We've already mentioned a couple ways for iPhone users to get access to Exchange mail servers (which the iPhone does not support natively). Now comes word of another possible solution from the UK firm Synchronica. The Synchronica Mobile Gateway apparently acts as a go-between, connecting to the iPhone via standard secure IMAP and SMTP, while communicating with the Exchange server via "secure Outlook Web Access." This allows iPhone users to access their Exchange email without IT managers having to provide IMAP support or open their firewalls. Basically if secure web access is available, Synchronica will provide over-the-air email to the iPhone without any further holes in the firewall.

Unfortunately this does not come cheap, with a 25 user license running € 2,122 (~$2925). I suspect you'd have an easier time convincing your IT people to give you IMAP access. On the other hand, this may be just the ticket for the security conscious with deep pockets.

[via MacVolPlace]

As much love as we may have and hold for the iPhone, there's a substantial chunk of the market that is resistant to the siren call of this miraculous device: those of us with enterprise email accounts (Exchange or Lotus Notes/Domino) that don't want any part of this shiny yummy new world. This may not be the most serious pushback from enterprise users -- see Tom Yager's scathing review of iPhone for enterprise use for some genuine buzzkill -- but it's a sticky wicket. Yes, both Exchange and Domino can be accessed over IMAP for compatibility with the iPhone's Mail application, but in many BigCorpInc scenarios the IMAP access is blocked for security or performance reasons.

With this in mind, there's a tremendous appetite for a more suave method of accessing enterprise mail, not to mention the calendar and contact data that lies alongside those messages. We've seen the insinuation from Steve that "something's coming" in the next few weeks, and the rumored ActiveSync licensing deal, but only one company has announced a product for enterprise mail on the iPhone: Visto. Update: Commenter 'stickybit' passes along the Synchronica announcement, via iLounge -- that makes 2 companies.

Since the June 28th Visto press release was thin on implementation details of how Visto's solution would work, we've been eager to get more info, and now we have it. I spoke to Haniff Somani, Visto's VP/Chief Architect, earlier this week and got a preview of how Visto's solution will deliver corporate email to the cranky corporate iPhone users.

If you've got a job that requires you to use MS Exchange, and have avoided the iPhone because of it, this may be of interest to you. IceWEB has announced that their hosted MS Exchange subscription service now supports the iPhone. Subscriptions start at $8.50US per month, and allow mobile users to send and receive Exchange email.

I haven't used Exchange, but I know that many people depend on it. Let's hope this will convince your IT department to get you an iPhone!

[Via MacNN]

Snerdware last week updated the iCal/Exchange middleware package Groupcal to version 3.80, adding one-way file sync to the feature list, among other enhancements. For Mac users in MS Exchange shops, the combination of Groupcal/iCal for calendaring, Mail for email, and Snerdware's AddressX for Global Address List sync provide a workable alternative to Entourage 2004's PIM functionality.

Groupcal licenses start at $55 with aggressive volume licensing available. Meanwhile, I'd better look for some products that don't have a duck in their logo...