I'm a small business operator and I'm looking for ways to provide security and reasonable privacy for my own business communications and communications of customers. All these businesses operate outside the U.S. and have no need to export their data to U.S. servers.
All the smartphones I've seen seem awful. Before somebody says "let me google that for you", remember, we're talking a business with a size of 1-25. "Enterprise" servers with dedicated admins, thousands of dollars in licensing are not reasonable just to be able to keep your own data private on your own phone.
Here are some criteria I put together, maybe there's something I'm missing. The features below can be provided natively (ideally) or through reasonably priced, well supported and fully functional 3rd party software.
Confidentiality
- Absolutely must not sync contacts with remote non-company owned servers or otherwise flagrantly violate privacy.
- Must support escrow-free device encryption, if there's escrow, it must be for the business owner to control, not the provider
- Must allow for also encrypting SD cards
- Must support wipe on too many failed access attempts
- Bonus: Mobile Device Management software without setting up new servers or requiring a specialized administrator.
Availability
- Must allow for offline access to email, calendaring and contacts.
- Must support ActiveSync for at least one Exchange system, including calendaring and contacts.
- Must support open standards for calendaring, scheduling and contacts. E.g., caldav, carddav.
- Must support multiple IMAP and POP3 accounts.
Integrity
- Must not alter contacts or calendar (merging, editing, "fixing" etc) unless explicitly told to do so
- Must allow for multiple calendars to be "layered" without importing or syncing.
Results of my own research
- Android 2.x: No device encryption short of directory-based LUKS
- Android 4: cannot use without Google account. Very difficult, or impossible(?) to use without sending your contact info to Google.
- Android 4 (customized): May work... not a packaged or supported solution.
- iPhone: seems to want an Apple ID, but not entirely sure what it's used for.
- Windows Phone 8: can't encrypt without Exchange ActiveSync profile, requires "enterprise" CAL, etc.
- Blackberry(BES5): requires special data plan to sync, ships data overseas. Requires special server software, etc.
- Blackberry(BES10): ... maybe? costs extra to sync to Exchange.
Are there other criteria I should consider?