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RIM Offers BlackBerry Service Without the BlackBerry
TheCybernator writes "RIM has announced that they're essentially planning to offer BlackBerry service ... without the BlackBerry. The company plans an app suite that will turn its push e-mail technology into a platform for Windows Mobile 6 devices. Less than a week after a network outage crippled BlackBerry users across North America, Research In Motion announced an application pack for Windows Mobile 6 devices that Canadian software developers said will intensify the competition for push e-mail. The firm has said that the BlackBerry Application suite will appear as an icon on the screen of the Mobile Windows device and load BlackBerry applications such as e-mail, phone, calendar, address book, tasks, memos, browser, and instant messaging. RIM said users will easily be able toggle between the two platforms, one of which would have a BlackBerry-style interface."
I suspect RIM is falling into the trap of believing that they can reduce winCE to a "poorly debugged set of device drivers". However, others have tried that path and failed.
For gods sake RIM, don't do a palm/netscape
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
on my Nokia 9300. I don't use it, but the client is definitely installed.
This phone doesn't appear to be very popular in the U.S., but it's the most useful phone I've ever owned.
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http://www.palm.com/us/software/blackberryconnect/
Blackberry Connect...
BlackNova Traders
Great! A service I would never pay for is now on two different platforms! Now people can be even more annoying during meetings!
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Of course, that was a very limited time offer.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Pull email is also traditional email. A client polls the server and checks to see if any email is available. If it is, its downloaded. New messages are checked every few minutes but you don't instantly get the message unless your holding an open connection. Push email has the server tell the device that the email is now available, and sends it to the phone (or part of it; I use Microsoft's version with my MDA which only sends the first kilobyte until I request the rest). This saves battery life because the phone doesn't constantly have to poll, and the email is delivered within seconds of it arriving in the server. It's similar to IMAP IDLE expect that the phone doesn't need to keep a connection open.
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Imagine: The service worked virtually flawlessly for years, and just a week before the announcement that they will be integrating Windows devices, it all goes crashing down.
RIP RIM.
You're nothing; like me.
Because the Microsoft "junk" is hardly limiting them, considering how popular it is. Trying for any other platform other than MS would be limiting them.
I read the Wiki article - it's pretty weak. (For example, it generally seems that messages are not really pushed out to clients, but the notifications are.)
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I think I found a white paper that explains at least the standard-based IMAP implementation better...
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232039&cid
Apple's offering to the phone world, the iPhone, as well as competing smartphones, may be convincing RIM to make itself more of a wireless communications service than a PDA provider. Palm is an excellent example of what can happen if you hold on too long to your own OS and not extend yourself when competition (Windows CE/Mobile) arrived.
PDAs and phone functionality were blending fast before the iPhone was announced. Although it's still vaporware by definition, the iPhone's introduction is changing the competitive landscape. It's in RIM's interests if they can made any of their services with any phone, although the use of Berries would likely be preferable.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Seems like that ought to also reduce the server load considerably. It means there is at most one conversation per email, instead of all clients connecting and checking for new mail every X minutes like in normal pop and imap.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Microsoft: We're worried about this iPhone thing eventually getting into the business marketplace.
RIM: We understand, but we don't think it's a big deal right...
Microsoft: Do you want us to give you the chair?
RIM: No sir.
It's similar to IMAP IDLE expect that the phone doesn't need to keep a connection open.
The thing is, 'keeping a connection open' is just an abstraction. It's all really just a set of counters and data structures, there's no connection. A 'push e-mail' system talks to a socket listener, but that's just an abstraction too - the kernel sends the incoming packets in a different direction.
That's not to say that cell phones have as efficient a way of handling an idle TCP connection as they do on their notification level, but that's a different layer. There's no real reason that they couldn't implement that layer intelligently, making IMAP IDLE just as good. I think this is some of the frustration Apple must be running into with the iPhone and why they have the X deal with Cingular for a couple years, so the network layer can get some fixes to allow modern computing on it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Cool,
First they offer us the Blackberry without the network, now they offer us the network without the Blackberry. What next? No network and no Blackberry?
Hey, I've already got that upgrade!
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
I don't see why you need anything from Blackberry; many E-mail clients and servers support IMAP IDLE, which gives you the equivalent of push email.