Last month, however, Egnyte got really Apple friendly by releasing an iPhone web client. We can now browse our file servers while on the road with an iPhone. This is actually a great feature if you just need a quick look at a document or image. The iPhone thinks Egnyte’s servers are web servers and if you download a .doc file, it uses the iPhone’s Quicklook to look at the file. This works with all of the iPhone’s Quicklook abilities including PDFs, XLS and PPTs. But this is where it gets interesting…
Our Egnyte file server also house MP4 movies for clients. Some almost a gig in size. Also, we have more than a few audio files saved as MP3s. Surely these won’t play on the iPhone over an AT&T 3G connection? Actually for once, I have to give it to AT&T. I was able to stream a client presentation that was saved in MP4 format while on the road. It of course looked and sounded great on the iPhone and it is available whenever I want. It is an amazing feeling to have secure access to all of your company’s files from the palm of your hand – at all times. If you haven’t checked out Egnyte yet, do yourself the favor. They have a free 15 day trial of use and if you are a small company or individual considering buying or upgrading a file server, you will be hard pressed to find a better solution. Oh, and did we tell you they are extremely Mac and iPhone friendly?
