I’ve never been the target customer for iTools, .Mac, or the latest incarnation “MobileMe,” but something about it has piqued my interest. I’m thrilled that Apple not only decided to go with an open source framework that results in standards-compliant Javascript on the client side, but that they decided to for exactly the reason I wanted: to avoid tying into a trap like Flash, AIR, or (God forbid) Silverlight. This shows a commitment to openness and standards that, even if it had not intentional, would still be a relief.

But there’s another part of MobileMe that is yet unanswered: how exactly does “push” work? Despite the cutesy images, MobileMe’s tagline is “Exchange for the rest of us” (a bad idea, in my opinion. As bad or worse than the original iWork tagline: “Microsoft Office for the rest of your life”). This would position MobileMe as Exchange-like services for those that do not want to buy and setup an Exchange server. If so, the question of pushing out email, contacts, and calendar notifications — a big feature for Exchange customers — has apparently been addressed. No one seems to know yet if they have just perfected and extended IMAP IDLE, if they set up their own in-house Exchange servers, or if they have created some new protocol that can replace Exchange.

The first seems possible, the second unlikely, and the third puts them in a position to sell this in OS X Server and compete directly with Exchange. If this third answer is the truth, then the iPhone and MobileMe is close to being a halo-effect trojan horse for corporations like the iPod was for consumers.