A lot of people have said moving to protocols like CalDAV and CardDAV for syncing email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes from Kerio Connect to your mobile device is a sacrifice. Many have said Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) is a superior option.

I thought the same thing until I got my first iPhone with Siri support. I noticed quickly that CalDAV and CardDAV support a few things that EAS doesn't, including calendar colors across devices, multiple alarms, and broader attributes for contacts.

Speaking of contacts, I was excited that with my new iPhone, I could give titles to a lot of my contacts. I spent the better part of an hour going through and defining the friends, family and colleagues that I call the most. The next time I told Siri to dial my girlfriend I was surprised to find that it didn't recognize her. So, I told Siri again who my girlfriend was and tried it again - still the same problem. After some searching on the internet I saw that EAS only recognizes "business" related titles, like boss, assistant, and so forth. Well, when I checked my girlfriend's information I saw that it had changed her from girlfriend to boss!

I'm sure a lot of people who know me (girlfriend included) would probably argue that that was a more apt title for her but I wanted it to be right. After switching to CardDAV syncing I tried it again and it allowed me set her up properly as my girlfriend. Although, sometimes I swear she changes it to boss just to play with my head. This is just one of the features that makes me choose to use open source standards over EAS.

-Walter Driskell
Kerio Sales Engineer