It seems that part of what the Motorola Q update I posted about recently included was the Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5. On the positive side, this seems to be the part of the update that enables a feature I’ve wanted for a very long time: finding contacts in the global address book (aka GAL) on my corporate Exchange server. In the past, I had gotten used to adding pretty much anyone who I might need to email to my contacts so I could easily email them from my phone if the need arose. This update allows me to not have to do that anymore which is really, really nice.

On the not so great (usability wise at least) side, this Pack also comes with the ability for the Exchange administrators to set and enforce a password policy for all devices connecting to it. What this seems to mean for me and my employer is that now my phone automatically locks itself after 15 minutes of inactivity (using the Device Lock feature). All of a sudden my phone didn’t let me do anything except to set a password a couple of days ago so I did and now realize there’s no way for me to disable it anymore. This is surely more secure but a bit of an inconvenience overall. It’s also not great when docking my phone with my computer as ActiveSync requires I unlock the phone (e.g. enter the password on the phone prior to or soon after docking) now or it doesn’t sync.