RE: Re: BULK BUY - Blackberry - preliminary feeler.

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Christian,

Mobile extension to corporate email is, I agree, an integral part of my pro= fessional life.

I have, over the last couple of years, used two different systems - first W= AP-based, now using a MAPI->iPaq presentation layer from 1eEurope, which= hooked into my corporate GPRS (vodafone) with a Bluetooth connection betwe= en my mobile phone (T68i) and my iPaq.

When choosing this system, we looked at a number of alternatives, and found= this to be a better fit for our corporate needs than Blackberry. I don't, = however, believe that it's suitable for use in a multi-client Exchange envi= ronment.

Just because Blackberry does this, and it's useful, doesn't mean that there= aren't other solutions that do it as well, or better.

Can you present the pros. and cons. of Blackberry against the alternatives,= please?

In addition, the costs of providing an Exchange server as an ASP would be u= seful. The companies who do this professionally charge about =A315/user/mon= th, which would on top of the proposed =A310/user/month Blackberry fee, and= the cost of the Blackberry itself.

I guess my big concern is that, in order to buy any of these services, I'd = be entering into (at least) a 12-month contract. Before I did this, I'd als= o want to understand the marketplace future, and know whether there was goi= ng to be a cheaper/faster/better alternative 25% of the way into it.

While Gerard and I have had some (public) disagreements in the past, I have= a lot of respect for his expertise when it comes to mobile data services. = This is an area on which he has contributed messages irregularly, but they = have been consistently forward-thinking and perceptive.


Regards,

Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Cundall (Groups) [mailto:groups@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 October 2002 19:54
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Re: BULK BUY - Blackberry - preliminary feeler.


Just out of interest, have any of you (Gerrard especially) ever used a
Blackberry in a corporate environment?

You will realise how these can become an extension of your arm and the
benefits they provide.


-----Original Message-----
From: PatrickLidstone [mailto:patrick@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 October 2002 08:22
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx Subject: [ukha_d] Re: BULK BUY - Blackberry - preliminary feeler.


--- In ukha_d@y..., "Gerard McGovern" <stuff@i...> wrote: > > gerard, you seem quite knowledgeable on this subject, perhaps you=
can
> > suggest a better way for the UK community?
>
> it all depends what you want to do.
>
> if you just want email on the move, you could argue that any phone
with
> WAP can offer that. taking that a step further, all recent
Ericsson/Sony
> Ericsson phones have a POP3 email client built in and that is my
> preferred method of access.
>
> at the moment, there isn't really a device like blackberry that is
> readily available in the uk. all of them tend to be much bigger (ie > 9210, ipaq etc). however, the danger device will be here soon and
palm
> have an interesting device in the pipeline that I can't really say
much
> about :-)
>
> anyway, those are the options. blackberry is a nice idea but a crap > execution.

Ericsson have made a good effort with their POP3 client, but as with
the iPaq it's really only suitable for read only use/very terse
replies. The 9210 fairs a little better in this respect, but whilst
the data modem is very resilient and performs well in poor coverage
areas, it only supports circuit-switched data, not GPRS, and the e-
mail client is incredibly sloooowwww to pull mail off servers even on
HSCSD connections - which makes it very expensive. And it's a brick.
Where the blackberry wins in my book is size + battery life +
keyboard + GPRS. It has rough edges as a first gen product, but
nothing else comes close today.

What I really want (really really want...) is a device that takes the
Psion keyboard, and adds integral GPRS & 802.11b with a landscape
format colour screen, Opera browser, decent e-mail client and PC sync
software that works flawlessly in a unit as thick as a Palm. I
suspect I've got a long wait...

Ho hum
Patrick



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