With the release of Winter '09, we have delivered a very significant upgrade to Salesforce Mobile. At the core of this release is the latest version of the Mobile Administration Console (MAC) which now offers significant ease of use and functional improvements over the orginal Sendia Console and significant infrastructure upgrades that set up the next wave of innovation - the ability to deploy Web and Visualforce tabs to the mobile device. Please review the full list of exciting features in Winter '09.

A very important part of the new Salesforce Mobile release is the upgraded security infrastructure that provides the foundation for Mobile Web Tabs and allows Salesforce Mobile to interoperate with advanced security schemes which customers are adopting. This new security infrastructure will be part of the recently released BlackBerry client version 11. As a consequence, Mobile Clients version 11 and later will not work with the old legacy console and will require customers to be deployed on the MAC.

End of Life
Future Mobile Client releases, from version 11 onwards will expect the new security infrastructure only available to customers who are deployed on the Mobile Admin Console. This new security infrastructure is invisible to customers and requires no action on your part, the Winter '09 Server and Mobile Client Version 11 onwards will automatically negotiate the security protocols.

We are therefore announcing End-of-Life for the legacy console. We will continue to support our customers on the legacy console through Summer '09 (Middle of 2009). After the release of Summer '09, the legacy console will be disabled.

What does this mean to me?
If you have users on the legacy console we have sent you an email alerting you to this fact.  We want you to successfully migrate to the new MAC so that you can take advantage of the many benefits available on the new infrastructure, better support, enhanced options for data set management, enhanced features to deploy Visualforce applications, better user and device management and adoption management.

How many customers are affected?
With each new release of the MAC over the past 2 years, more and more customers have already chosen to migrate to the new functionality and take advantage of the easier, integrated administration for Salesforce Mobile. In fact over 90% of our Salesforce Mobile customers have already migrated to the new MAC.

Do I have to migrate to the new MAC right now?
No, you don't. But you do need to make sure your users do not upgrade to Version 11 of the Salesforce Mobile client, since this client requires the new security infrastructure that is only supported on the new MAC. Users on the legacy console who upgrade to Version 11 of the Salesforce Mobile Client will receive an error when they try to activate and be presented with a link to re-install the Version 10 release.

We will continue to support Salesforce Mobile version 10 and the Legacy Console through the Summer '09 release in the middle of 2009.

Ok, I am convinced its time to move to the new MAC, how do I do it?

You may begin to migrate your users at any time and you may do so gradually, one team at a time or all at once. There are a few easy steps to migrate a user from the legacy console to the MAC.
1. Enable the user for Mobile by checking the 'Mobile User' checkbox on the user record.

2. Create a Mobile Configuration to define the data set and mobile properties for a group of users.

3. Assign the users to Mobile Configurations.

4. Issue a 'Delete Device' and then 'Delete User' from the legacy console have the user re-activate their Mobile Client. When they do so, they will automatically be activated on the MAC.

Yes, its that easy. You can migrate one or many users in this way.

A migration guide is now available online!

How can I get help?

Please review the Salesforce Mobile Blog for best practices and the latest Salesforce Mobile information.

Please review the getting started information and demos online.

Please file a case with our support organization, we have fully briefed our internal customer support and Customer Success organizations to help advise you on how to make a smooth and easy transition to the enhanced MAC.