Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Replace Blackberry?
nmccart writes "According to Wired Magazine, Microsoft, along with Cingluar and Vodaphone, is planning to introduce the next generation of Windows Mobile phones that can receive e-mails "pushed" directly from servers that handle a company's messaging. This will allow companies to skip over the cost of installing a Blackberry server, and instead just use the Exchange servers that they are already using. The question becomes, now that this technology is cheaper, will my VP be buying new Windows Mobile enabled cell phones for his entire department just so we can put in more hours?"
So many places i know now are running blackberry and so many people i know have blackberry devices i think it will take a long time if it ever does occur for people to switch over to Windows SmartPhones.
I don't know that I entirely agree. While Crackberries are quite popular, I think that there is still a significant number of companies that don't have a mobile email solution that would jump at the opportunity to do it as a "single" solution. As well, as companies look to upgrade, having the all-in-one solution could be quite enticing. The biggest bonus for M$ is that I don't think they are necessarily counting on driving significant additional short term exchange licenses due to this manuver, so they can afford to wait and slowly take on marketshare. Remember, people wouldn't be buying "Windows Smartphones", they're buying mobile email solutions that also allow them to do voice. If a Windows Smartphone fits the bill, then so be it.
Blackberry works great for people with no servers etc. Our mobile solution has been Goodlink which makes the Treo a force to be reckoned with (if you get a working Treo that is, but that's another issue...), it can also run on some blackberries(I think) and WinCE.
Support for mobiles built in exchange? Bye-bye Goodlink at $300 a seat.
I hooked up a few of these. This is definitely a Ver 1.0 or Ver 2.0 Microsoft effort. After hooking it up I tried to sync my 1000+ contacts, and it gave up the ghost at ~100, with no errors mind you. Also "push" is not seamless like a RIM, it goes out via the carrier's SMTP to SMS gateway so in some cases it gets crushed in carrier's SPAM filters. Never mind that a very common setup of no front-end OWA server is not supported out of the box, but via "knowledge base" article.
This is not ready for prime time.
In our company we use Orange (UK) Smartphones set up to pull mail (POP3) from a Linux server running Postfix, MailScanner, ClamAV, Razor and SpamAssassin.
That's it.
The only contracted costs are the broadband link, phone rental and call charges.
No licences, no hosted servers, no ($$) Exchange server and no ($$) Blackberry Server.
Nuff said.
AT&ROFLMAO
>>3.) There really are not all that many Blackberry users out there versus Exchange users (or even Domino users)
No argument there.
The point is what number of them are likely to be interested that aren't already on Blackberry? The existing base has already spent the money, and how much of the remainder are potential customers? Not everyone is interested in 24/7 email into their cells.
Why bother using Exchange and crappy MS phones when you can use Open-Xchange and push messages with its SyncML Oxtension to a real phone, including a Blackberry or Treo?
--
make install -not war
So many places i know now are running blackberry and so many people i know have blackberry devices i think it will take a long time if it ever does occur for people to switch over to Windows SmartPhones.
Depending on the situation, it will take a much shorter time to switch to Windows Smartphones.
Consider the scenerio where you have an Exchange 2003 Server with an Outlook Web Access (webmail) front end server. Lots of companies either currently have this scenrio or have a similar Exchange 2000 scenerio and will upgrade in a couple of years.. If you have this scenrio, turning on Exchange Active Sync, the technology that makes this happen, is an afternoon of work. Period. It's done. There are no extra licenses, no extra software and no extra infrastruture. Getting approval for it will be increadibly easy, because it carries about the same risks asthe OWA server you're already running.
Now consider you have the exact same scenerio, but also a Blackberry server. It's still painless to turn on EAS, so having the two work side by side is easy. You can have Smartphones and Blackberry offered to your employees. But if you already have EAS and don't have a Blackberry server, how are you going to convince your boss to pony up the cash for Blakberry?
In short, since EAS is "free" (as in "you already paid for it, but didn't know it at the time"), you're far more likely to deploy it than the "expensive" Blackberry server. Thus, MS wins again.
TW
Full disclosure: I've implimented an EAS solution at my company and currently have an Audiovox SMT5600 Windows Smartphone. The Syncing is awesome, though I find myself restarting my phone periodically, something I never had to do with my old Nokias. I've never owned a Blackberry, though the few times I've played with one convinced me they're a fine solution.
This is all based on second-hand information, so some of it might be wrong, but here's my understanding of how it works.
Getting mail to to a WinCE PDA has always been easy. The standard technique was POP or IMAP over whatever Internet connection you can finagle (eg, GPRS). However that was always a pull technique and the thing about crackberry addicts is they want the mail to appear on their PDA as soon as it arrives at the mail server (push). One technique is to send an SMS every time a mail arrives so the PDA knows to check the server, another technique is to poll the server frequently, but both of those techniques can be very expensive.
The new WinCE enabled PDA achieves push by opening an HTTP XML request back to your Outlook Web Access server. It sends the username and then just waits. If any mail arrives then the OWA sends back a "ping" message that tells the PDA to pull the new mail. When the HTTP request times out the PDA simply opens a new connection. Effectively this works the same as push - mail "appears" on the PDA as soon as the Exchange server gets it - but without excessive bandwidth costs or SMS costs. It also means you don't need special crackberry servers or a crackberry subscription.
So my guess is that this will be the downfall of crackberry, and not a moment too soon.
The good:
------------------
1) If the real-life version works as well as the virtual PC demo I participated in, it will do exactly what the marketing materials say it does.
2) It not only synchs email, but todo, contacts, appointments, etc. Everything but public folders, I think.
3) On the server side, all of the software required to do push sync is free with Exchange Server 2003.
The bad:
------------------
1) Phone requires Windows Mobile 5.0, plus a sync driver/module thingy that (groan) HAS TO BE INSTALLED ON THE PHONE BY THE MOBILE VENDOR.
2) Support for this configuration is, well, going to suck because the mobile vendors will push you through their help desk (pretty much guaranteed to NOT understand this), and Microsoft can't support the mobile piece of the puzzle directly, even though it's technically their software.
3) The range of services over which mobile vendors will be able to exert their control has been expanded to include private corporate messaging, appointments and task lists! Yay!!!!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Using IMAP IDLE, you get push capabilities with a lot of mail readers. On Palm, for example, there's Chatter E-mail.
I have never understood why Blackberry has become so popular--I find the device, the user interface, and the service to be just awful compared to the alternatives.