Lately, I have been looking into a product called mNotes by CommonTime. The mNotes product is similar to iAnywhere in many ways, however, it has a few features not found in the Pylon product that are of interest to several of my corporate customers. These include: support for multiple calendars, multiple To-Do lists, multiple email users, and on-device folder support. This last feature will apparently allow for the filing of messages on the device and to have those changes replicated to Lotus Notes wirelessly. I'll let you know how the evaluation it works out.
My primary reason for choosing the TREO 650 and the SprintPCS network is their $15 PCSVision plan with unlimited internet. Thanks to the Sprint PCS network, I can replicate data between the TREO and Lotus Notes. When changes happen at the desktop or on the device, they will be immediately replicated to the other location. Earlier this year, I deployed this system for a client using Pylon iAnywhere and I was very pleased with the results. On the unified messaging front, I've been using and recommending Remark! Unified Messaging for the past 8 years; my next project will be to look for ways to integrate the TREO and RUMA.
BTW: The SprintPCS activation process, while mostly smooth, left something to be desired. After entering all of my data on my touch-tone keypad, I was connected over a mediocre quality VOIP connection to Ray, in the Philippines. (I sure hope Sprint's PCS voice quality is better than their customer service voice quality). Of course, I had to give Ray all of the same info that I typed in when I placed the call -- the same information I had to provide when I placed the order. So much for integrated ordering. :-( 20 minutes later, after sharing all of the information that you are not supposed to give to strangers over the phone, I was assigned a temporary mobile phone #. As for the famous $150 rebate, the rep told me that it would take between 4 and 12 months to get the rebate and that I would have to initiate it after 4 months. I wonder if I'll see that $ again.
There is no wireless coverage up here in the mountains where I live, so I'll have to wait until I drive down to the city to see how it really works.
Best wishes for a blessed Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for.
Eric
Discussion/Comments (11):
Eric, any luck with Notes and the 650? I have the new Cingular GSM version, and it does not work with Pylon. I could never get my Cingular 600 to work with mNotes.
Any suggestions?
Dale Johnson (): 11/26/2004 7:39:51 AM
Eric I wonder.... The companies trying to sell gateway add-ons to the Treo messaging experience (I'll use GOOD as an example) say that there is a long dealy in recieving the synch information over the sprint network. They all claim theuir software gets rid of this problem cause they are force feeding information to the device. So I wonder in your testing if you can tell us about any delays you might find. --DAle>
Tanny O'Haley (http://tanny.ica.com): 11/26/2004 9:28:25 AM
As you know Eric, because of a snafu with the activation process (in India) with Sprint and my Treo 600 last year. They got my address incorrect, even though I spelled it out for them, I never received my $150.00USD rebate. But not only that I never received my $200.00USD rebate from Amazon because I never received my first billing statement, then the time to submit the rebate ran out. Keep us informed on the process.
Eric Mack (www.ericmackonline.com): 11/26/2004 9:29:46 AM
If you send the messages to the phone using SMS or email, then, yes, there will be a delay - determined by prior messages in the queue.
The Pylon iAnywhere software has the ability to communicate directly to the device itself over IP. The device "pings" the server every 10 minutes to confirm that it is still connected to the network and to identify its location (IP address). The iAnywhere server, when is has a message to deliver, communicates directly with the device. It is almost instant.
A word of caution: using this method will reduce battery life (particularly on 802.11 devices). For me, a small price to pay.
A second word of caution: Have an excellent spam filter in place! You want to have the server forward only the important messages.
Eric
Philip Balmer (): 11/29/2004 5:21:22 PM
Eric,
I think you will enjoy mNotes. Having the ability to file notes in my Lotus Notes folders on my Ipaq is a godsend. The other killer feature is the ability to replicate any of the folders that you wish from your mail file. Its neat. I seem to be to the point to where I can do mail more quickly and conveniently with my Pocket PC than my Thinkpad. Hope your evaluation goes well.
regards,
Philip Balmer
Mike Peternell (): 8/26/2005 11:26:22 AM
Greetings!
I am deciding on a Blackberry 7100g and treo 670. My company uses Lotus Notes and I have not been able to find much on pushing email out to the treo (not syncing). Do you have a document detailing how you are able to get notes pushed out to the treo?
thanks - mike
Eric Mack (http://www.ericmackonline.com): 8/26/2005 7:09:58 PM
Mike, it's been a while since I;ve set this up, but as I recall, there are at least two ways to do this. One is to set up Pylon to listen for syncs or to request a sync very few minutes, which requires a persistent connection to the server - not very battery efficient. Another method, which Pylon supports, is to configure the server to send an alert to the Treo that causes the Treo to pull messages.
I'm actually planning to deploy two new Pylon and mNotes servers soon, so I'll have more current feedback then.
Good luck,
Eric
David (): 2/28/2006 1:08:35 PM
I have a treo 650 and lotus notes.
I installed mnotes and activesync and it did not sync at all?
What did I do wrong?
Can someone help on installation?
Do I need activesync from microsoft at all?
Thanks
Karl Buck (): 5/17/2006 6:44:50 AM
I just installed mnotes in personal mode. My whole reason for getting this was to keep my calendar syncronized, but I'm having trouble getting it to work. The log gives an error (see below) but there is no user guide on the Commontime web site and I can't seem to find a forum for support of this product. Anyone here willing to lend a hand?
OK Quick Install
OK VersaMail
OK Memos
Contacts
OK Contacts
Calendar
** An error occurred whilst replicating items of class 'Calendar'.
**** An unrecoverable error occurred whilst sending replication information to the mNotes server.
****** ERROR - An unexpected Notes API error occured: File does not exist.
Calendar synchronization failed
Tasks
** An error occurred whilst replicating items of class 'Tasks'.
**** An unrecoverable error occurred whilst sending replication information to the mNotes server.
****** ERROR - An unexpected Notes API error occured: File does not exist.
Tasks synchronization failed
Calendar - sync configured to Do Nothing
Contacts - sync configured to Do Nothing
Tasks - sync configured to Do Nothing
Eric Mack (www.ericmackonline.com): 5/17/2006 7:30:00 AM
[email protected]
That said, this error looks like the config profile for your Treo is not pointing to the right email database.
Karl Buck (): 5/17/2006 9:04:24 AM
You are right - I did find the answer to the question in the knowledge db on the commontime website. My location document needed to be fixed to show the correct location of my notes db. Apparently, it happens fairly often that is incorrect. I imagine the location document copies the location from the server version. Since notes works fine with that setting, few people ever notice. But since mnotes uses that location document to find the db, it errors out.
Now if I can just get it to replicate my mail, I'll be all set.
Thanks!