A while back, I was asked if I wanted to review a book written by Exchange fellow Steve Goodman. The full title of the book is “iPhone with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010: Business Integration and Deployment” and it’s Steve’s first book. However, I didn’t take that into account when writing this short review.

Overall, the book is a well written blend of Exchange and iPhone related content. Now, I look at products called “iPhone and/with ..” with a certain amount of skepticism. In such cases I expect something of which a marketing department decided that adding “iPhone” to the title could increase sales or justify a higher price, all because iPhone sells.

However, when reading through the 290 pages I was pleasantly surprised the book touches iPhone related contents some Exchange administrators may have never experienced first hand, like using the iPhone Configuration Utility. From my experience, most customers treat an iPhone device for what they are, YAEASC (Yet Another Exchange ActiveSync Client).

From an Exchange perspective, the book is extensive and covers topics like server roles and Database Availability Groups, but doesn’t cover all topics and not in too much details. For example, the book mentions that you need to make arrangements in order to make the environment available via the internet, but a little guidance on reverse proxy settings or how the important autodiscover process works might be helpful.

Overall, the book does a good job of trying to cover the gray area between iPhones and Exchange server, and could be appealing to Apple shops wanting to implement Exchange or a customer with Exchange or Office 365 looking for ways to manage iPhone end user devices. If you’re looking for in-depth information on Exchange only or PowerShell/Exchange Management Shell, I’d recommend like “Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out” by Tony Redmond or Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook by Mike Pfeiffer.

You can check for the book on Amazon here (Kindle version here).