iPhone 3.1 update disables Exchange connectivity, what about Zimbra Mobile?

[fultonj]

Zimbra Admins running Zimbra Mobile who have iPhone users should see the following:

iPhone OS 3.1 now enforces Exchange encryption policy, may block pre-3GS iPhones

Specifically:

After the 3.1 update, non-iPhone 3GS users (touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G) won't be
able to access Exchange servers for their Email, Contacts and Calendar if the
Exchange connection has been set by their administrators with a forced device
encryption connection. Only iPhone 3GS devices now work in this mode.
Apple has said <http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2941> it improperly set up
encryption on iPhone OS 3.0 which wasn't really encrypting the Exchange information.
Luckily, the Gmail Calendar and Contacts sync that uses Microsoft's ActiveSync
API (to act like an Exchange Server) is not affected.

What does this mean for Zimbra Mobile Admins with iPhone users? Perhaps Zimbra, like Google, used Microsoft's ActiveSync API to act like an Exchange Server and there is nothing to worry about. The options to change it on the Zimbra or iPhone side are minimal:

• Zimbra Admin: Check or uncheck the "Zimbra Mobile Box". We run our web services encrypted.
  
• iPhone: Select "Exchange ActiveSync", Enter the store server's address under "server" and select the "Use SSL" option.

Will the iPhone 3.1 upgrade break Zimbra Mobile for iPhone users?

[bradb21]

When they refer to encryption they mean storage of the message in the phone in an encrypted format and not the transport. The policy in Zimbra does not support the encryption policy that is available in later version of MS Exchange. At this point Zimbra only support PIN and Remote wiping (which the iPhone has supported for some time). This is issue that you post is not an issue for Zimbra iPhone users to worry about.

[fultonj]

Before you replied I had tested a 3G w/ Zimbra Mobile after upgrading it to 3.1 and had no issues. Thanks for clarifying that it was related to secure storage and not transmission.

[Dirk]

To add to the "its ok" feeling, I can confirm that we've upgraded a couple of the handsets to 3.1 and it's working fine with both Zimbra 5 and 6

[bradb21]

I was a little confused myself until I talked to a friend that runs a large MS Exchange implementation and is also an iPhone user. He explained to me that it was encryption of the local messages stored on the phone and not the encryption of the transport (iPhone has no problem with that). Zimbra does not support a policy for local encryption so there was no worries there. Zimbra has just started to enter the EAS policy support in 6.0 and has just touched the surface of what is available.