While a lot of enterprises have moved on to better and more robust email programs, there are still a lot of companies that use Microsoft Exchange as their default program for work-related email, as well as contacts and calendar-syncing. But if you wanted to access your information on your Android mobile device, the options are very limited. Gmail for Android has now added support for Microsoft Exchange accounts so you can use it as your default app for both personal and professional use when outside of your work environment.
Previously, the Gmail app only supported (aside from your actual Gmail itself) Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail and other IMAP/POP accounts. It did have Exchange Support as well, but only for Nexus devices. Now all Android smartphones that have the Gmail app installed will also be able to support not just the email part of Exchange, but even the contacts and calendar data as well. Even the calendar invites that are sent to you will sync with your Exchange calendar once you’ve clicked accept.
Microsoft Exchange was Microsoft’s internal mail server until it got replaced, at least the email client, by Outlook. It eventually added other email protocol (POP3, IMAP, SMTP, EAS) aside from its own proprietary protocol MAPI and became open to the public. But Gmail for Android was one of the app holdouts, until now.
You can update your Gmail app now so this support for Microsoft Exchange will finally show up. But don’t worry if the update hasn’t reached you yet as the rollout will take around a few days to reach all users.
SOURCE: Google
“While a lot of enterprises have moved on to better and more robust email programs”
Just out of interest what are these better and more robust “email programs” you speak of, and can you qualify what makes them better and more robust?
And while you’re at it can you qualify what you mean by “a lot” because pretty much every Enterprise I’ve worked for uses Exchange and Outlook!?
Couldn’t agree more. What a joke.
laughingjohn took the words right out of my mouth. I would LOVE to hear about these alleged “more robust email programs”. You can’t just make things up Ida. Since you think of it as an “email program” I wonder if you even know what Exchange does.
Whoever wrote this article is living in a fantasy world and has absolutely not credibility writing about email programs. Exchange is the standard and is the most robust email platform extant. I am no great lover of Microsoft, but if there is one product of theirs which is excellent it is Exchange and their Outlook clients. Oh, and BTW, every Android comes with the ability to connect to Exchange servers built right in. There are also a plethora of great email clients for Exchange on the Android as well. Please do not allow the dolt who wrote this article to continue to review things they are obviously clueless about. This person needs to find a new line of work or at least keep their mouth shut.
i personally don’t find outlook to be robust or reliable, myself, but exchange certainly works well. thankfully there are lots of exchange clients to pick from.
the article was clearly written by someone who doesn’t understand the abstract concepts of server software, apps, protocols, etc.
my issues with outlook are a series of many tiny issues but taken as a whole they make me loathe the software. for example the following steaming pile of outlook issues are all recent memories for me:
– address auto completion works about 10% of the time (i can type a full friggin email address and outlook still won’t recognize it, then click check names and presto it works and i can see the user’s status/etc)
– scrolling through a large mailbox with the scrollbar (as opposed to using a scroll button on a mouse) fails to update the list when the mailbox has more than ~30 items in it. this has been an issue for ~6 years or longer now and over multiple versions of the software. absolutely kills me when trying to scan through mails
– plugins for webex/lync/skype/etc frequently fail requiring a full uninstall/reinstall to enable creation of new meetings under those platforms
– outlook stores all content in a single database (1 file) and just LOVES to corrupt the damn thing about once a year (this is moot if you use a cloud service which my office switched to a while back, thankfully)
– searching within outlook is PAINFULLY slow. i can start a search in outlook, get frustrated, open a browser to the outlook web access portal and start the same search there, get my results from OWA, go back to outlook and find the app is STILL chugging away miserably failing to find the content i seek
hell my 3rd party android app (Nine) functions so much better than outlook on my pc that i sometimes hook up a bluetooth keyboard and draft long messages on my phone rather than suffer with the desktop software. i’ve been dissuaded from replacing outlook on my pc with more functional software (though i don’t think IT would remotely remove/disable such software if i did install it).
this article feels a bit… confused.
– for months now users could have sideloaded full exchange support for gmail (worth mentioning i think) e.g. by installing signed APKs from apkmirror
– quote: “there are still a lot of companies that use Microsoft Exchange as their default program for work-related email, ….”
-> err. no. exchange has NEVER been a program (never mind the default one) people use to access their emails, etc. it is a SERVER software; always has been.
– quote: “But if you wanted to access your information on your Android mobile device, the options are very limited”
-> nope again: there are tons of exchange compatible apps for android: Boxer, Touchdown, Nine, Accompli, etc. the majority of these (perhaps all?) support all exchange primary features (mail, calendar, contacts) and most also support secondary features (notes, tasks).
– quote: “Microsoft Exchange was Microsoft’s internal mail server until it got replaced, at least the email client, by Outlook”
-> confused again; exchange is STILL microsoft’s mail server software and outlook does not replace it at all. outlook is the primary desktop client software to talk to exchange servers
– quote: “… It eventually added other email protocol (POP3, IMAP, SMTP, EAS) aside from its own proprietary protocol MAPI and became open to the public.”
-> i’m not sure what you mean by “it” here. microsoft? outlook? exchange? all three support all of these protocols in multiple product versions. MAPI was made public (as in documented API) 9 years ago… i’m not sure this event is meaningful in your article.
– quote: “But Gmail for Android was one of the app holdouts, until now.”
-> one reason some mail apps don’t support exchange is that client software must pay a royalty to microsoft for supporting the protocols. yup even though the API is public, if you want to talk to an exchange server you’re supposed to pony up. many mail apps are free for all protocols then charge ~$10 to add exchange support. if THIS changed recently it would be great news, but you didn’t make such a claim. even if you did i would have a hard time trusting the info given the amount of confusion in the rest of the article.