Blackberry info needed

eidolon

eidolon

eidolon

Soldato
Joined
31 Oct 2002
Posts
13,892
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne
Hi there

I have two sets of users that wish to have a Blackberry for their emails. One set are external users that just retrieve their emails via POP3, the other are internal users that access an Exchange 2003 server (when they're on the road they just use the VPN or OWA)

I assume that the POP3 users are easy to set up but I'm confused how the internal users would get their email. Do I need to purchase additional server software to push the emails to them or is there an easier way (easy is good as I can't be bothered to mess with the server too much!)
 
With my limited understanding of BB...

Two options - BIS and BES (IIRC!).

BIS is for smaller businesses or individuals and the majority of the work is done by Blackberry / your carrier. For instance on O2, you setup your BB via www.o2email.co.uk. The BIS server will retrieve mail from your Exchange 2003 via IMAP, POP3 or by OWA (not sure entirely how that works but it's there when setting up a BB). You supply the details for your server (FQDN), username and password.

BES is the Enterprise version and means installing extra software (and possibly hardware) at your site. Never been down this route myself but have heard from friends that it used to be a sod to install.

We've got a couple of customers using BIS (O2 & Voda) working off SBS 2003 or Exchange 2007. Seems to work well using IMAP. Activating IMAP logging in Exchange is a good idea for troubleshooting but it's a registry key to do it.
 
Your discussing two rival technologies here

There is the blackberry solution. Which carries blackberry branded handsets and also has counterpart server side software. You can run this software yourself, or you can get the handset provider to do it

THe rival technology is microsofts push e-mail. This however requires a supporting device. Most of the new HTC phones support it, and the iphone 3g will support it. This enables the e-mail to be pushed onto the device. However to do this serverside, you need Exchange 2003 with SP2, or Exchange 2007.

*edit* if they are already using blackberry handsets, you're either going to have to buy the blackberry software (or use O2s etc..), or not have push e-mail. Blackberry only supports push from its own software. it will work with normal pop3 e-mail, but just logs on and checks its every 15 minutes.
 
Last edited:
We have a BES server here at work and to be honest it just does exactly what it needs to do and causes us very little hassle.

Installation is straight forward as long as you have all of the required information from the Telco.
Also here in the UK RIM don't sell their product directy - so you'll end up buying BES through the Telco and they "insist" you pay for installation if you want your system supported.

Once setup you just add and remove users as you need and it just works.
Occasionally the server may need a reboot but that is about it.
 
Just spoke to Orange who were completely useless. They didn't have a clue and basically said that they don't support Exchange 2003.
 
Yeah, I think I just got a brain donor on the phone. I asked to be put through to the data team but he claimed they didn't deal with Exchange either.

Will try again tomorrow, hopefully get somebody who knows what they're talking about.
 
If your users already have Nokia phones running S60 (symbian) software (N82, N95 etc) then they can use Nokia's Mail For Exchange which uses the Activesync protocol to talk to Exchange. I set it up on my N82 in just a few mins & it syncs Email, Calendar and Tasks with my company's SBS 2003 box pretty well :)
 
eidolon said:
Yeah, I think I just got a brain donor on the phone. I asked to be put through to the data team but he claimed they didn't deal with Exchange either.

Will try again tomorrow, hopefully get somebody who knows what they're talking about.
Click to expand...

do orange deal with exchange though ?

as far as im aware they offer a blackberry product, if you want push e-mail you have to use the blackberry backend stuff from orange.

The other way of doing it is with exchange push e-mail, but i dont think any of the telcos offer this. You'd have to host this yourself, but thats not a problem as its a doddle to setup, and just requires a compliant handset and a normal windows server. Configuring the client is just like configuring outlook, and if you already have an exchange server, you install SP2 and use the existing server,and only need to configure the push part of it.
 
I support Blackberry users, both BIS and BES

Bis in my opinion is not ideal for up to date on the move business users, BES does that role spot on. Installing BES is quite straight forward and as already mentioned, as long as you have all the info before you start, it's straight forward. The software can be expensive and I would recommend it's run on its own server.

A client has BES and Vodafone is the carrier and it's been spot on and they use them in the UK, Ireland and all over Europe.
 
We've been using BIS over OWA for 5 blackberry users on Orange, Vodafone and O2 which was very easy to set up. No problems except a couple of times when we lost our internet connection and the users didn't know how to restart BIS pushing the emails out again.

I've had a look at BES but couldn't justify the cost (although the CEO may still want it anyway). There is also BPS which (IIRC) is free with one CAL and (i think) £75 for additional CALs (up to 30 users in total)http://eu.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/offers/professional_express.jsp

I've started looking at windows mobile but it's not been long enough to form an opinion yet
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom