Slashdot Mirror
An Experiment In BlackBerry Development
ballwall writes "We've all read the stories about how lucrative selling apps on the iPhone can be (or not), but what about other platforms? BlackBerry accounts for twice as many handsets shipped as Apple, according to Gartner, so I decided to find out. I wrote about my experiences developing my first BlackBerry application including sales, platform issues, and a bunch of other things I thought new mobile developers might want to know about."
But, there more are corporate users without the right to install anything...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Blackberries on BES offer enterprise features simply unheard of with Winmobile or iphone devices. Windows mobile only recently got the much needed security features such as remote device deactivation and wiping. Blackberries simply offer more for the enterprise such as a slew of custom encryption features, mds for intranet based apps, web proxy features so you can control user's network browsing, full featured logging (down to the phone calls you make) fully customizable IT and security policies, and I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other features that Blackberry offers that has not even been contemplated for Winmobile much less iphones. Maybe you should be offering your customers reasons to use Blackberries and not reasons to make your job easier. You never know, they may think that one of those features you don't care too much about is pretty nifty...
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
BES is, IMHO, a steaming pile - java, dot.net,
Ok, BES does use many technologies. The new BES 5 even requires activeX plugins for some web-based admin tools.
32-bit only. Feh.
Ummm, not true. BES has supported 64-bit windows and 64-bit databases for quite a long time.
Recent iPhones handle active sync nicely and don't bitch about self-signed certs.
Ummm, that's called a security flaw by most competent admins. Frankly, if you can't afford $12.99/year (with coupon code) to get a godaddy signed certificate, maybe security isn't what you're looking for. Is it possible to install your own certificate authority on iphone (or is it that apple doesn't let you)? You can install your own certificates on blackberry, and even manage them all centrally on the BES. You can even use S/MIME & PGP for additional email encryption.
My clients pay $$ for BES CALs, the devices get stupid and need to be factory reset often and re-activated, costing my client more $$ for my time.
Well, then you & your clients don't know how to administer a BES & blackberries. The devices are extremely solid, and almost never need a factory wipe. Of course, most problems will be resolved by a factory wipe & reactivating, but there is almost always a far easier & faster way to resolve the issue, but it seems you don't know that.
When something goes wrong with a windows pc, do you wipe your hard disk & reinstall every time? That will resolve the issue, but there is almost always a simpler, easier & faster solution.
Reactivating a blackberry user on a BES is REALLY HARD! How hard is it? On the BES 4 series, you run the BES console, find the user, right-click on the user, and set the activation password to whatever you like. Then, on the blackberry, go to options, advanced options, enterprise activation, enter your email address, enter the activation password you just set, and click activate. Wasn't that hard?
Frankly, if your clients can't activate a blackberry by themselves, then maybe they aren't smart enough to use email.
I honestly cannot see the attraction when there are better solutions to talk to an Exchange server
Better? How many other solutions have real push email? None (windows mobile comes close with their fake push). How many other mobile email solutions have remote lock, remote unlock, remote wipe, solid AES encryption, certification by many governments and other agencies?. Can you force your users to have a password? Can you force your users to always encrypt the blackberry contents? Does your iphone overwrite freed memory so that the contents can't be read by disassembling the device? Nope.
Do you need to restrict your user from browsing the web? Do you need to centrally track SMS, email & phone calls? All this is easy on the BES.
iPhones, WinMobile or a laptop with RPC over HTTP(S) all work more simply
Ok, that's true. The BES platform is complex, but that is because it does so much.
Look, BES isn't for everyone - there is a lot of complexity & a lot to learn. You may be better off with an outsourced BES provider (there are many). Or choose the Blackberry Professional Software (BPS), which is a simpler, easier to use BES-lite.
OK, fair enough to yours and all of the above replies. I'm replying to yours as it is the harshest, but no hard feelings.
I should have mentioned that I provide services to small and almost medium-sized businesses and orgs. If I was in an "enterprise" admin role my feelings would be different, and so would the needs and realities my clients face. Picture a law office with 8 users, a business with 20 users, an org with 40 users - that's my space. For this space, licensing and labor cost far more than hardware.
For this market segment, BES is not, IMHO, the way to go. Licensing and maintenance will bleed my customers dry. Exchange is the cheapest "groupware"-ish solution I can provide for them. For their mobile devices, the same logic applies - keep licensing and maintenance to a minimum. I appreciate that for "enterprise" the added security and logging of BES/blackberry are desirable. Where I live, selling a decent backup solution is a hard task.
And for those about to suggest it - yes, I have tried the open source route. Hate to say it - they want Office, they want Outlook, they want their calendars/contacts/tasks/etc. That means Exchange. Pains me a bit, but I get over it.
Yes, the web and email and other internet facing servers are on linux VPSs - not gonna put Exchange or Sharepoint on a public IP, but in the LAN I have to go win*. Don't like it, would prefer otherwise, hope to see the day...
When It Counts.
A lot about it. That is a pretty long posting with some insight for people completely unfamiliar with the world of blackberry development.
The story gets an upmod for that, though I suppose it could be seen as a really long plug for the guy's product. He mentions the surge from advertising on blogs and even includes graphs showing his trials vs. sales over time with some bumps pointed out.
A decent read overall.
Just correcting you, i'm a BlackBerry developer so have some insight here. The number of users using pre4.0 is miniscule, v4 OS onwards offers everything you need. The vast majority of developers code using the 4.2.0 API. As more and more users migrate to the newer devices developers change the API they code against accordingly.
The requirements for AppWorld are 'BlackBerry® Device Software version 4.2 or higher' so this is what most developers code against as it's their primary sales channel.
Developers are free to code using the more recent API to get the added features and the JDE has PreProcessor definitions for this... The BlackBerry is an old platform, new devices appear and old ones stop being supported. You'd be crazy to still make sure your software works correctly on a 7230.
'If you want to access the entire market you have to stay plain vanilla and use straight java.' this is complete uninformed nonsense.