N900 for business use

[DrTiermann]

Gentlemen,
thank you for many interesting threads.
As N900 seems to become a powerful device I am still concerned about its functionality for business/corporate application. The benchmark seems to be Nokia E-series devices.
I would like to post some important questions, which hopefully will not become blocking points for business oriented usage of N900.

1. What kind of security certificates does N900 support for corporate WLAN access? Does it support “authority certificates” (algorithms like: X.509, SHA1RSA)?
2. Does N900 support advanced WLAN security, like different kinds of EAP (EAP-PEAP, EAP-MSCHAPv2, etc.), different cipher (RSA, 3DES, SHA, etc.)?
3. I understood it support SIP over WLAN, I hope the build in SIP client removes the non-digital characters from phone numbers from contact automatically during the dialing (know problem in some E-series phones).
4. What about the voice control functionality, like speaker independent voice recognition for different functions, e-mail’s reading, etc.?
5. Please don’t repeat same mistake with “period” (.) symbol in regional keyboards layouts (RU, DE) as in Nokia N97, where is NO “period/point” symbol directly (w/o pressing other buttons). If so, please add firmware with “double space” gives a “period”.
6. What is about availability of full featured Office applications (Word, Spreadsheets, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP, etc.)? E-series functionally is benchmark here.

I understand, that many of these questions are not easy to answer before the devices hit the shops.
I would appreciate your information, if any.
Thanks!

[locusf]

Gentlemen,
thank you for many interesting threads.
As N900 seems to become a powerful device I am still concerned about its functionality for business/corporate application. The benchmark seems to be Nokia E-series devices.
I would like to post some important questions, which hopefully will not become blocking points for business oriented usage of N900.

1. What kind of security certificates does N900 support for corporate WLAN access? Does it support “authority certificates” (algorithms like: X.509, SHA1RSA)?

N900 will support this as N810 did too, however, the certificates need to be in PEM format.

2. Does N900 support advanced WLAN security, like different kinds of EAP (EAP-PEAP, EAP-MSCHAPv2, etc.), different cipher (RSA, 3DES, SHA, etc.)?

Yes this is supported, but in N810 this did not always work out. There is a bug filed in bugs.maemo.orghttps://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2051, but I think this should be fixed. Actually I have a similar network at my university, so I'll give it a try once I actually get my hands on the N900 first :).

3. I understood it support SIP over WLAN, I hope the build in SIP client removes the non-digital characters from phone numbers from contact automatically during the dialing (know problem in some E-series phones).

This shouldn't be a problem, since the contacts on the "desktop" and in the phone book have separate entries for SIP, so by tapping the SIP entry you will automatically call a SIP call via 3G or WLAN, depending on which are you connected to.

4. What about the voice control functionality, like speaker independent voice recognition for different functions, e-mail’s reading, etc.?

Don't know about this. Maybe the community could help out here?

5. Please don’t repeat same mistake with “period” (.) symbol in regional keyboards layouts (RU, DE) as in Nokia N97, where is NO “period/point” symbol directly (w/o pressing other buttons). If so, please add firmware with “double space” gives a “period”.

There is a period symbol directly accessible :)

6. What is about availability of full featured Office applications (Word, Spreadsheets, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP, etc.)? E-series functionally is benchmark here.

There is a office suite available with read-only capabilities but the activation is some amount of money.


I understand, that many of these questions are not easy to answer before the devices hit the shops.
I would appreciate your information, if any.
Thanks!

Thank you, its always a pleasure to help.

[bocaJ]

This shouldn't be a problem, since the contacts on the "desktop" and in the phone book have separate entries for SIP, so by tapping the SIP entry you will automatically call a SIP call via 3G or WLAN, depending on which are you connected to.


Do you happen to have first hand knowledge on whether an SIP call will be placed if one only has EDGE access, and no WLAN or 3G? TIA!

[locusf]

Do you happen to have first hand knowledge on whether an SIP call will be placed if one only has EDGE access, and no WLAN or 3G? TIA!

Nope, don't have any knowledge on that. But my guess would be that the bandwidth on EDGE _should_ be enough to handle most codec bitrates with good quality.

[matthewcc]

Any word on tight corporate email integration? Like for lotus notes... my company, for instance runs sybase iAnywhere which has yet to support S60v5.

Also how about popular VPN clients? It would be amazing if I could just run a full version of notes on my device over vpn... I think i Just wet myself...

[benny1967]

4. What about the voice control functionality, like speaker independent voice recognition for different functions, e-mail’s reading, etc.?

I'm sorry I don't find the source any more, but IIRC, none of this is supported. It was one of the reasons that made me decide I'll pro'ly stick with my S60.

[locusf]

Any word on tight corporate email integration? Like for lotus notes... my company, for instance runs sybase iAnywhere which has yet to support S60v5.

Also how about popular VPN clients? It would be amazing if I could just run a full version of notes on my device over vpn... I think i Just wet myself...

Well vpnc should be portable, if your company uses Cisco VPN.

[dwould]

I'm keen to find out if the N900 supports dynamic wep 802.1x. the 810 'supports' eap-tls under wpa but not dynamic wep. also no support for eap-leap. either of these would make the device killer for me. without I'm left unconnected at work with very poor cellular signal :-(

[texaslabrat]

Nope, don't have any knowledge on that. But my guess would be that the bandwidth on EDGE _should_ be enough to handle most codec bitrates with good quality.

bandwidth yes, latency...probably not so much. At least in my experience...the EDGE connections add at least 500-1000ms latency to all connections versus 3G...which is not a big deal when you are downloading maps from google but make voice calls a bit like international calling 20 years ago through the satellite relays.

But, all of my testing has been done on AT&T...perhaps t-mobile has a better setup. As usual, JMHO, YMMV, IANAL, etc.

[nowave7]

Well vpnc should be portable, if your company uses Cisco VPN.

VPNc works nicely on N810, there should be no problem porting it to N900. And so does the VNC.

[matthewcc]

OK... So i did some research in to Notes running on Maemo... and I found that you can get notes 8.5 to run on multiple Linux systems. Now I'm not anywhere near an expert on Linux, so I need some help to understand how similar or different... will it work...

AIX 5L V5, AIX 6, Linux for System x 86Series, Linux for System z, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Red Hat Ent Linx RHEL Dsktp wWrkstn, Red Hat Entrprs Linx RHEL Base Srvr, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop(SLED), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Solaris (Sun), Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC, i 5 (formerly i5/OS V5), i 6 (formerly i5/OS V6)

[DrTiermann]

N900 will support this as N810 did too, however, the certificates need to be in PEM format.



Thank you very much for these valuable inputs!
Can you post an example or link to PEM format?

[DrTiermann]

This shouldn't be a problem, since the contacts on the "desktop" and in the phone book have separate entries for SIP, so by tapping the SIP entry you will automatically call a SIP call via 3G or WLAN, depending on which are you connected to.



I was not able to make my point clear - if address book has phone number in international format like +7 (495) 128163, and you want to call this number via SIP without making separate SIP entry, the E71 client is not able to complete this call, because it does not delete the non digit characters (it has done in E61, but not in E71).
It is interesting, how N900 will handle it?

[DrTiermann]

There is a period symbol directly accessible :)



Yes, it is true, period is available in US/UK keyboard layout, like on N97 and N97mini. But both these Nokia models don't have it in Russian or Germany localizations. I'm afraid, N900 may repeat this mistake in RU and DE keyboards.

[ragnar]

Yes, it is true, period is available in US/UK keyboard layout, like on N97 and N97mini. But both these Nokia models don't have it in Russian or Germany localizations. I'm afraid, N900 may repeat this mistake in RU and DE keyboards.

The period is directly available in the DE keyboard and behind FN in the RU keyboard in the N900.

[benny1967]

I was not able to make my point clear - if address book has phone number in international format like +7 (495) 128163, and you want to call this number via SIP without making separate SIP entry, the E71 client is not able to complete this call, because it does not delete the non digit characters (it has done in E61, but not in E71).
It is interesting, how N900 will handle it?

This may not depend entirely on the N900. I have a similar setup on the N810, and here's what happens:

All entries in my contacts are stored as +XXYYYZZZZZZ (X=country code, Y=local area code, Z=phone #), always including the "+" sign.

I have 3 SIP-accounts set up on my N810. In the account setup, I can choose if I want a certain provider to be used for landline calls.

I know now that it depends on the provider entirely. There's one who takes anything, as long as it contains at least an area code.

Two other SIP providers require me to dial numbers as if I was using a phone within Vienna, which means I must not dial "+43" (the country code for Austria) at all, I have to dial "00XXYYYZZZZZ" for international calls, "ZZZZZZ" for calls within Vienna and "0YYYZZZZZZ" for long distance calls within Austria. This is an absurd requirement for a mobile device.

The bottom line is that it might not be the fault of the E71/N900/... if you have such a problem. It should be the SIP provider who takes care of these issues.

[durval]

bandwidth yes, latency...probably not so much. At least in my experience...the EDGE connections add at least 500-1000ms latency to all connections versus 3G...which is not a big deal when you are downloading maps from google but make voice calls a bit like international calling 20 years ago through the satellite relays.

But, all of my testing has been done on AT&T...perhaps t-mobile has a better setup. As usual, JMHO, YMMV, IANAL, etc.

Even worse than the latency is the jitter (latency variation): 800ms average latency with 500ms up and down variation on almost a packet-by-packet basis is the norm in my experience. Throw in some packet loss and you get an almost unusable connection even for ssh use, let alone SIP and other voice (isochronous) protocols...

I should note that my experience is restricted to brazilian EDGE & 3G carriers: Claro, Oi, TIM, all of them are really bad re latency and jitter. Vivo is a little better (maybe their network isn't as congested, as they charge higher prices than the others).

Best regards,
--
Durval Menezes.

[abbra]

Regarding ability to do SIP calls over cellular data connection, it is not a limitation of N900 per se. If you happen to have some nice 3G subscription (mine is 1Mbps Elisa), SIP works well from N900. From the device side of view it is quite straight-forward.

[durval]

Hello Abbra,

Regarding ability to do SIP calls over cellular data connection, it is not a limitation of N900 per se. If you happen to have some nice 3G subscription (mine is 1Mbps Elisa), SIP works well from N900. From the device side of view it is quite straight-forward.

No arguments about that: it isn't a limitation of the N900 or of any other device: with my N800 for example, I've run SIP calls over WiFi going over an ADSL connection and then over 3G (with a USB 3G modem connected to the router). The first one worked great, and the last one sucked; it's an issue with the connection and not with the device.

But as I've said, that has been with Brazilian 3G carriers; never heard about Elisa. Where's that? Also, would you mind running both a "ping -c 10 200.255.204.22" and a "traceroute 200.255.204.22" and posting the results here? Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
--
Durval Menezes.

[blivit]

OK... So i did some research in to Notes running on Maemo... and I found that you can get notes 8.5 to run on multiple Linux systems. Now I'm not anywhere near an expert on Linux, so I need some help to understand how similar or different... will it work...

AIX 5L V5, AIX 6, Linux for System x 86Series, Linux for System z, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Red Hat Ent Linx RHEL Dsktp wWrkstn, Red Hat Entrprs Linx RHEL Base Srvr, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop(SLED), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Solaris (Sun), Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC, i 5 (formerly i5/OS V5), i 6 (formerly i5/OS V6)

You are going to have several problems. First IBM does not distribute source code, only binaries. None of the OSs listed above are for the hardware platform used by the N900. Second its not clear how useful the Notes Client will be on a small screen. The Linux version of the Notes Client is Eclipse based and it takes up a lot of screen real estate. A better shot is talking with IBM about the client they have for the IPhone (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/inotes/ultralite/) and porting that over to Maemo.

[locusf]

I was not able to make my point clear - if address book has phone number in international format like +7 (495) 128163, and you want to call this number via SIP without making separate SIP entry, the E71 client is not able to complete this call, because it does not delete the non digit characters (it has done in E61, but not in E71).
It is interesting, how N900 will handle it?

I think it will be selectable in the phone application itself, like in jkkmobile.blogspot.com's video on N900: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31245&goto=newpost, see the last 2 minutes of the video, you can see him using the dialpad and it says something on the top of the screen, this might be the selection item for Skype, SIP or normal network :)

[matthewcc]

Re: lotus notes on N900

First, thanks a lot for your response. I use ultralite on my 5800 sometimes, other times the mobile version. in either case, I access them from the browser. So I guess this will not change much. There is always a chance that Sybase will have their iAnywhere product support maemo 5. though it has been a year and still nothing wiht Symbian S60v5

[matthewcc]

Looks like it is possible to have a lotus notes sametime client on maemo: http://pidgin.garage.maemo.org/

[chilko]

Office viewer for Maemo5 based on KOffice (http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009/09/17/office-viewer-for-maemo5-based-on-koffice/)

[quipper8]

I currently use e71 for everyday work and will probably get the e72 for work too, but I will also have to have n900 for playing with. Who knows, it might get to a point where I use the n900 more.

A few things not on n900 which kill it for everyday work use for me at least

No syncml over http
No quickoffice
No AT&T 3g

[pelago]

Office viewer for Maemo5 based on KOffice (http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009/09/17/office-viewer-for-maemo5-based-on-koffice/)
Interesting news. Is this 'just' a viewer, or an editor too? The blog article first makes it sound like the whole of Koffice has been packaged for Maemo 5 by Nokia, and then goes on to talk about a viewer, but I'm not sure if that's referring to two different things or one.

[debernardis]

Interesting news. Is this 'just' a viewer, or an editor too? The blog article first makes it sound like the whole of Koffice has been packaged for Maemo 5 by Nokia, and then goes on to talk about a viewer, but I'm not sure if that's referring to two different things or one.

This is excellent! I have to try a recent version of Koffice, because 1.xx kinda sucked, but hopes are great...

[matthewcc]

Re: Lotus notes support. So just as a prep for myself and many others... after 9 months of waiting, Nokia 5800, and N97 users just get Sybase's iAnywhere program.

I wonder how long we will need to wait for Maemo support.

[rharvey]

I'd like to know whether the Lotus Notes Traveler, which was announced last year for S60 devices, is going to run on this platform?

[qole]

Looks like it is possible to have a lotus notes sametime client on maemo: http://pidgin.garage.maemo.org/

sametime support will be a downloadable package from Extras. A bunch of Pidgin protocols (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc) will be add-ons to the communications protocols.

[matthewcc]

I'd like to know whether the Lotus Notes Traveler, which was announced last year for S60 devices, is going to run on this platform?

I have not heard anythign about this.... yet. For now we at least have the full web gui and can use the web client for notes.

[Dirty Harry]

Does anyone know if you can synchronize your calender and contacts etc with Lotus Notes over Nokia PC Suite??
I've seen somewhat conflicting info on this on the net, and it is really essential functionality for me, and I guess for many others who use group calendars in a corporate environment.

[matthewcc]

it is not that hard, when you go to your sync settings you can select from where, i believe it handles notes 6,7,8 you just have to tell it where the file is. The files are usually .nsf files. I think...

[Dirty Harry]

That's how I do it with my current symbian e90, but can you please confirm that it really will work with the (maemo/linux) N900??

[mikec]

I currently use e71 for everyday work and will probably get the e72 for work too, but I will also have to have n900 for playing with. Who knows, it might get to a point where I use the n900 more.

A few things not on n900 which kill it for everyday work use for me at least

No syncml over http
No quickoffice
No AT&T 3g

The N900 comes with Dataviz docs to go. This is a full featured version that allows editing and viewing of MS$ Office docs,powerpoints and spreadsheets.

Mike C

[quipper8]

The N900 comes with Dataviz docs to go. This is a full featured version that allows editing and viewing of MS$ Office docs,powerpoints and spreadsheets.

Mike C

thanks, I didn't know that before. Just researched it, looks like it comes with viewing capability, editing you have to pay for. STill good to have available office onn there though!

[Flandry]

There's also a release of KOffice specifically for Maemo that Nokia has contributed. I haven't tried KOffice with MS documents recently, but the press release about it specifically mentioned MS document compatibility being an area of focus by Nokia.

[RevdKathy]

Can anyone tell me whether either KOffice or docs-to-go include the transitions in ppt? (Yeah, I nurse this fantasy of turning up at a conference and plugging my phone into the projector...)

On another note while people are discussing lotus notes and MS exchange, I suppose I'm the only one whispering "Groupwise"? I fear groupwise will be obsolete before that happens.

[jolo]

I currently use e71 for everyday work and will probably get the e72 for work too, but I will also have to have n900 for playing with. Who knows, it might get to a point where I use the n900 more.

A few things not on n900 which kill it for everyday work use for me at least

No syncml over http
No quickoffice
No AT&T 3g

It does have Documents To Go. What do you need from QuickOffice? Is editing files important, or is viewing enough?

[mrt]

That's how I do it with my current symbian e90, but can you please confirm that it really will work with the (maemo/linux) N900??

Yes, like matthewcc said. I do it with Notes/ Domino 7 and my N900 using Nokia PC-Suite. Same like I did before with my E65.

But I'm using only Calendar synchronization. With contacts I've never tried, sorry.

Regards

T.

[Dirty Harry]

Thanks for the answer, although that post was eight months ago!
I happily sync both Contacts & Calendar with Notes over PC suite since half a year now.

[mrt]

:D:D:D My mistake.Due to a search I found this thread and didn't really realize how old it was.

But now, everyone who might read this in future will get a confirmed answer ;)

[edgarloxton]

Has anyone tried to use Commontime's mNotes to sync email/calendar/contacts over-the-air sync between Lotus Notes and the N900? mNotes support activesync and should theoretically sync with any device that supports activesync. I have used it successfully with my Palm Pre and iPhone.

[Dirty Harry]

Has anyone tried to use Commontime's mNotes to sync email/calendar/contacts over-the-air sync between Lotus Notes and the N900? mNotes support activesync and should theoretically sync with any device that supports activesync. I have used it successfully with my Palm Pre and iPhone.

Very interesting, but from their webpage can't see that they would support Maemo = Nokia N900

[raghavmurali]

syncing with pc suite will give calendar entries, but can't able to view business emails. lotus traveler is available for almost all platforms and ibm has promised for andriod this year. but no news about supporting maemo platform. i somehow feel let down by nokia for dropping maemo os. can the community support

[raghavmurali]

I have intalled Nitdroid and using lotus notes traveller. Unfortunaltely there is no phone and sms support yet. Hence using my old phone n93 for calls.

[hardkorek]

You may configure web interface on your Lotus Domino Server and access mailbox via web interface.