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BlackBerry Outage Spreads To North America
iONiUM writes "With increasing pressure on RIM to catch up to the new phones, and the upcoming release of the iPhone 4S, could this three day outage of BlackBerry's service be a nail in the coffin? From the article 'The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.'"
This is the same outage as was reported Monday. RIM has released a few details on what's happened: a failed software upgrade brought the system down, and, after repairing the first issue, the backlog of traffic overwhelmed their network infrastructure taking things down a second time.
My Blackberry still wo$% NO CARRIER
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Absolutely nothing going on... really.
Vescere bracis meis.
What did one Blackberry owner say to the other?
Nothing!
Summation 2
Clearly, there is a ghost in the machine. And his name is Steve.
said the rim founder guy
You'd think they would have highly paid people to foresee these kind of problems and have a contingency plan for to prevent a massive outage? Nah, they cost too much.
Its Unknown Lamer with another Apple propoganda article!
If I had any stock in RIMM, I would sell it all off. They're finished...done as far as I'm concerned. Just look at their 5yr history. Unless they pull a major fat rabbit out of their ass, it's not going up. I don't see how.
Not sure when it went out last night, must have been when I was sleeping. But it started working again this morning for me. Don't know about the europe situation but N.A. service wasn't affected very much at all it seems.
Seriously though, this couldn't have come at a worse time. Like the summary says, the iPhone 4S is just about to be released, and I imagine a lot of angry Blackberry owners are going to run out and buy one.
Personally though, I'd advice them to think twice and to get an Android phone since I don't think the iPhone reception issues have really been addressed and they'd just be going from one device with reception but no internet access to a device that sports the exact opposite.
Summation 2
Like many software consultants who travel all over the world, I have family and friends on BBM from many different countries. I have also come to rely on the blackberry for IM and email on the move. To make things worse, I also bought a BB Playbook which pairs nicely with my BB. And since it cant do email over wifi, the Playbook has also become essentially unusable for me. I'm on BIS ( not BES ) I would have been fine if I got a text message from ROGERS saying "hey BB service is down we'll be back in 3 days" - instead I am experiencing silent and sporadic outages. RIM, you've let me down.
Yes, it's a good thing to mention that the iPhone 4S is sold out and coming out this week. Because as we all know, iOS 5 doesn't move almost every single existing feature that iOS has onto the iCloud, where similar outages can now affect Apple users.
Nope. Definitely worth mentioning the iPhone 4S, because it totally competes with the Blackberry when it comes to enterprise services and security.
Oh, wait, everything I've said so far is wrong. Oops.
Seriously, what does the iPhone have to do with a Blackberry outage? No one using a Blackberry is going to switch to the iPhone, because the iPhone doesn't fill the same niche in any way. If you want a phone that can play Angry Birds, get an iPhone.
If you want a phone that can integrate with your existing IT infrastructure, you get a Blackberry or an Android.
The RIM outage might push more people over to Android, but it's not going to push anyone to iPhone. The iPhone is a shiny consumer toy, it's not a serious smart phone. The fact that the great new features for the iPhone 4S are a camera and a greeting card service is proof enough of that.
I suspect that people will fund it strange that it would happen at the worst time it could but the truth is that it always will if your infrastructure doesn't incorporate the redundancy to cope with the issues that are going to occur.
In the UK, on both outages, RIM has let the mobile networks take full blame for all of the issues - they haven't issued a statement, or let the networks know what to tell customers, with network call centers as much in the dark as the callers themselves.
because their bb messenger is down. that's why!
I just switched from a Blackberry to the Motorola Bionic on Sunday. I feel lucky now.
People who think that Blackberry is about to die are delusional. While I cannot argue that they are floundering in DEEP trouble, and indeed appear on the brink of collapse, the reality is that corporations depend too heavily on BES... for now.
ActiveSync to iDevices and Android works just as well (some argue better) than BES, and anyone (*cough*) who has ever administered BES knows what a pain in the ass it is. But it works, and for the most part works well.
While consumers only seem to care about launching birds out of slingshots and using a text messaging system that is only marginally better than traditional SMS/MMS (oh! I can see when they read it! and when I can't, I'm going to defect to iPhone anyway because this is clearly the only reason to use a device!), corporations and admins care about the track record RIM brings to the table for security and manageability. And that's a big sector who has yet to be convinced by the same flash and glitz that seems to win over consumers (i.e. iDevice).
Blackberry has some years left. At the moment, the only people who can put the final nail in RIM's coffin are RIM.
No B infrastructure?
No testing?
Bet the business made lots of money though.
Deleted
Ahhh No.
It has a much faster dual core CPU, a new radio that supports both GSM and CDMA and a new higher resolution camera, and a new antenna. The only things that didn't change is the screen which a lot of people still think is the best screen on the market, the sensors and frankly I do not know what else they could have added their, and the case.
It is very close to a new phone but it is without a shadow of a doubt a much improved version of the 4.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If you want a phone that can integrate with your existing IT infrastructure, you get a Blackberry or an Android.
What about me ... iPhone integrates my my existing IT infrastructure. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO CHOOSE!!!
So what you're saying is, if you want a phone that does what you want it to, then get an iPhone. But if you want a phone that does what your corporate IT department wants, get a BB.
Ehh, apparently you missed a memo or five. iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while. I have full e-mail, calendaring, and contact sync from the corporate exchange server on my iPhone. We're talking a Fortune 100 multinational here, not "dude the e-mail server guy totally hooked me up with e-mail on my iPhone!" On top of that I can use the VPN server to direct connect to the corporate network and manage my systems from the wifi in the mall if there's an emergency. Maybe a Blackberry can do that too, I don't know, but there's nothing I need to do remotely that I can't do from my phone. I also happen to know for a fact that this is all true for Android too (the guy I replaced uses a Droid something or other and he had the same setup I do). The days when Blackberry could just say "yeah, but we have all the business clients" are long over. They need to compete on features, because business no longer goes to them by default.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I just rebooted my berry early yesterday for the first time in several months. I then went ahead and installed all the available software updates.
I'll try to do software updates at less important times next time.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Looks like a RIM job.
It's funny how so many people jump all over RIM in a situation like this but completely forget when the east coast earthquake knocked out all the Android and iPhones and BlackBerrys were the only thing working.
A) the antenna design is a slightly altered on that was introduced with the Verizon iPhone. The antenna design is actually very good, you get much better reception with the larger external antenna - the only downside was the gap you could touch to potentially drop a call (if reception was weak), which has been moved to where you can't hit it accidentally. It's also not like you cannot affect signal strength similarly with almost any phone, search for "HTC death grip" and see what I mean. Your meaty hand does a great job of reducing signal strength when you wrap it around any phone tightly.
B) You can opt for Verizon or Sprint for voice service, which have better call quality - but slower data feeds. With the 4s at least you can still roam in GSM countries even if you have Verizon, which is nice. That stopped me from leaving AT&T before.
The annoying thing though, is that you cannot buy an unlocked iPhone to use with anything but a GSM carrier. I was hoping to buy an unlocked hone and try Sprint for a while... so be aware if you wanted to get an unlocked phone for international travel you'll be using AT&T.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Surely you don't expect people to listen to facts about the iPhone around here do you?
They're too busy being smug and hip by blaming the users of Apple products of being smug and hip.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, the outage seems to be in motion . . .
BlackBerry Outage Spreads To North America
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It doesn't move "almost every single existing feature" onto iCloud. Literally every single iCloud feature is optional. Here's the breakdown:
* Option to do backups to iCloud server.
* Apps have access to a Dropbox-style storage space for syncing info across devices.
* Rebranding Apple's webmail, contacts, and calendar services to iCloud.
* Option to redownload previously purchased iTunes content on the device.
So if iCloud goes down:
* Have to do backups locally
* Angry Birds saves don't sync any more
* Can't check iCloud email, have to edit contacts and calendar entries manually on each device. (If you use iCloud for those.)
* Have to plug into computer to copy purchases
Whoop-de-fucking-do. It's exactly the same situation I was in if my Nokia stopped talking to Google Sync.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Well combined with the unpatched bug that prevents me from running Appworld and multiday failures of BBM, email, web browsing facebook etc.
I'm not looking at another blackberry.
They need to compete on features, because business no longer goes to them by default.
Of course not, their routers are down, duh...
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Because as we all know, iOS 5 doesn't move almost every single existing feature that iOS has onto the iCloud
What you do't know is what that means. iCloud is there as a serve to help sync data between devices. You could lose iCloud for 50% of the day and probably not notice, since all of your cloud based data would be eventually synchronized.
Many of the iOS5 features added don't use iCloud at all.
Definitely worth mentioning the iPhone 4S, because it totally competes with the Blackberry when it comes to enterprise services and security.
Between VPN, active sync, and remote management support - Yes, yes it does. At least you got one right.
Oh, wait, everything I've said so far is wrong. Oops.
No, just that first thing. Glad to help you.
If you want a phone that can integrate with your existing IT infrastructure, you get a Blackberry or an Android.
Oddly businesses like to communicate and secure devices, which would instead lead to choosing an iOS device as so many have...
You clearly have no idea what is happening in the enterprise space. iOS uptake is huge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On the first day of the European outage, I was leaving my office and a student got on at the second floor. She was texting on her phone and I asked her about that, since it was a Blackberry and, as she commented still working in the US. Her reply was illuminating.
"Yes, but they're on the way out."
If you can't catch 'em young, you're toast.
Rim made a living off disabling IDL in IMAP and selling it as a middleware product, suing the shit out of people doing the same thing, and gouging customers that use SMS. I don't wish they go out of business. I wish they go out of business and rot in hell.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while.
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to *UNSECURELY* integrate into corporate networks for quite a while.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'm not even talking about the outage. I'm saying that if I owned a large company no WAY would I want lots of potentially sensitive communication going through third party servers.
It was a good idea for a while because the advantages you got greatly outweighed the potential danger. But at this point as you say Activesync works really well. Why take the risk to open a portal for potential corporate espionage when you do not have to?
As a an only slightly hypothetical example, what if China asked RIM for some communications and then shared them with a chinese company? RIM has shown they will hand over data to security organizations and in some places like China with nationalized industries you could easily see how they might misuse that ability to peer into what you are doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes but your not having to use expensive middleware and are not tied to Microsoft products for services. Also, your mail client is able to use IDL in IMAP for "push email". So it totally doesn't count as "integrating into the existing IT infrastructure".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I had not heard that alternate carriers would unlock GSM, great news. Perhaps it will convince AT&T to follow suit...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A company that we contract with is desperately trying to move away from Blackberry because the devices have an incredible amount of difficulty connecting to their enterprise services. iPhones and Android phones have no problem at all.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while.
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to *UNSECURELY* integrate into corporate networks for quite a while.
Hey, I'll play.
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks *RUNNING EXCHANGE* for quite a while.
It's been remarkable to see a bunch of otherwise-super-technical slashdotters fall back on criticizing a cellphone's case design. For some reason I thought this was part of the "shiny" "iBling" aspect of a product I was supposed to ignore.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
To be fair, iOS 5 supports certificates, and the email client has always had SSL (certainly the MTA side wasn't secure, but what else is new?)
Android supports this as well with some third-party somethingerother.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'll be totally honest with you, I was making assumptions that, since they didn't call it the iPhone 5, that little/no improvements were made.
That, and the only apple dork I talk to wasn't interested in it.
After reading LWATCDR's comment though, I'd like to point out I was wrong.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks *RUNNING EXCHANGE* for quite a while
Sure it can, just not as well as a BB. As Microsoft states: iOS 4 ActiveSync issue reflects Apple's priorities. "They don't have a vested interest in the load on an Exchange server ... The iPhone is not meant to be an enterprise device
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Thank goodness RIM's been losing market share - this could've affected a lot more people!
Seriously, though - using a centralized server does have its selling points, especially to corporations. Unfortunately Blackberry users are currently experiencing the negative aspect of that design decision.
#DeleteChrome
This is the big difference between iCloud and other cloud servcies. iCloud is primarily a synchronization platform, there's some remote storage but it's meant to always backs local assets, much more like Dropbox than Google Apps. A pure cloud solution would just let you read everything off the remote, but doesn't necessarily make it easy or friendly to maintain local mirrors.
If the servers go down, you lose the ability to sync, but you don't lose what you have.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Seriously, what does the iPhone have to do with a Blackberry outage? No one using a Blackberry is going to switch to the iPhone, because the iPhone doesn't fill the same niche in any way. If you want a phone that can play Angry Birds, get an iPhone.
Except that they are, and in droves.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Malware gets into the iPhone app store, too, despite Apple reviewing stuff.
What "malware" was that?
Applications cannot look at other application data or alter the system. So just what is that "malware" supposed to do? What was the application?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But it just doesn't do it seamlessly. Besides the much lower batterylife on IOS devices with activesynch push, it doesn't seem to be reliable: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1868
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Seriously, what does the iPhone have to do with a Blackberry outage?
Akward timing, like the summary said.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You know, most sane people wouldn't count "you're holding it wrong" as "addressing the issue."
As noted, they adjusted the external antenna and even provided two receivers to adapt.
That's as far as you can address it, as mentioned if you really want to degrade the signal on any phone you can.
The iPhone at least has much better reception because of the external antenna design than many other phones.
Wait, is this SuperKendall admitting there's a flaw with his hallowed Apple products?
That's because unlike you, I know what the hell I am talking about and not afraid to list good AND bad points of any device. You would never in a million years admit to a flaw in your device of choice - hell, you can't even use a real ID.
Although as it turns out you can simply buy a Verizon/Sprint phone and use a SIM card in another country anyway (they unlock GSM) so the point was moot.
anyone else find it hilarious that Apple is so heavily advertising the camera in the 4S without those last two?
Wow, you've utterly lost touch with things that are important to real people, haven't you?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have a new BB (9900) with OS7 (via. work) and have been completely underwhelmed by it. OS7 is really just OS6.1, and OS6 was more like 5.1, which was more like a 4.8 in real functionality. It feels like Windows 98 with a Windows 7 skin on top of it.
The web browser is a massive improvement, luckily, but I still find myself frustrated by it. Clicking on simple links doesn't work half the time, and I now fondly look back to my browsing experience on my iPhone 3G, a now 3 year old phone, and how it never faultered nearly as much as OS7. The app store is still more or less a joke compared to even android marketplace, and nowhere near Apple's App Store. RIM may be able to tout reasonable numbers of apps, but 95% of them are usually junk apps with very limited functionality. Not that I download many apps, seeing as a 2MB download takes about 2 minutes (and I have excellent coverage).
Even with a 1.2 GHz proc, the phone still stutters and lags, and in general, feels dated. It can't even play back HD video captured by its own camera without stuttering, despite it's new 'crystal hd' rendering engine, or whatever the hell it's called.
It's functional, it works, and gets stuff done, so I suppose I can't complain (except for today's outage, which I'm a part of). I'd easily prefer an android or IOS device, though.
We just got internet back in Chile on blackberries (they route through the servers in the U.S. and Canada to provide service to South America).
So now I can call my carrier and replace it with an android.
Which has been in the works for a while. The amount of bugs and problems with the recent BB os had already had me shopping for an android, when this outage occurred.
Guess what? I am taking my whole company with me. Good by RIM. Hope everyone sold their stock. Someone will be picking up the pieces of that company at a fire sale.
My predication.
Since this outage started, the Battery life on my Blackberry Bold has been depressingly short. Today it was flat after just 4 hours...I hope the device isn't repeatedly going out to RIM servers and running up a crazy data bill (with nothing to show for it). That's the only reason I can think that the battery life would coincidentally drop radically...or...the battery simply failed at the same time as the outage. - COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
I would have thought if Apple had changed the form factor slashdot geeks would have complained bitterly how people would have to pay for new cases for a "minor upgrade" ignoring the fact that most people would be upgrading from a 3GS or older would need new cases anyways. Personally I call it an incremental upgrade from the 4 not the major jump from 3GS -> 4 was. But for those on a 3GS, it'll be huge upgrade.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I just had my Verizon FiOS installed today and normally the technician activated the modem using a blackberry. But today he had to call-in and wait about an hour on hold for them to activate the modem remotely. People are comparing Blackberries to iPhones, but Apple iPhones aren't relying on a dedicated network and I don't think there are many businesses that rely on them.
This is RIM's way of paying tribute to the late Steve Jobs. They are holding a 3 day moment of silence in his honor.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
About two years ago our company had a ... let's say ... rapid shift in IT personnel. The reason for this is not important to the story. Among the personnel we lost were the three admins who knew how the corporate blackberry server worked.
Three days, three hours, and 26 minutes later, the BB server went down hard and stayed down for a week and a half, while unqualified replacements struggled (not very hard, in my opinion) to restore service. (For the first four days they insisted nothing was wrong, and had all of us cycle through endless repetitions of restoring to factory defaults, reentering corporate account info, and other makework.)
Now, it's not for nothing that it's called a crackberry. Blackberry users (of which I was one) rapidly get addicted to the instantaneous gratification that is well implemented push email, and this is what Blackberry classically has done best. It's what they're known for. And when it fails, well, can you say "wholesale panic"??
Personally, I had an Android corporate phone talking to the Exchange server before the BB server went back online. I don't have push email, it's not as nice, but two factors forced the change: (1) I did not know when, if ever, the Blackberry enterprise server would be back online, and (2) I had no confidence in the new IT folks' ability to keep it up. My confidence was shaken. Blackberry as a platform had taken a huge credibility hit.
Now imagine that, only worldwide. They're dead. The very addiction Blackberry has encouraged over the years is now working against them.
Too bad, they make some nice phones. If our BB server had not had its troubles, I might still be carrying one.
Now the only question is, will they migrate to Android, or iPhone?
Like a lot of things, it depends on what you use it for. The non-technical will migrate to iPhone because they don't have to fiddle with it and iPhone has similar "mindshare", similar recognition amongst fellow executives, as Blackberry. The more technical minded, who have gotten used to replaceable battery and storage and regularly use "mass storage mode", don't really have a choice these days other than Android. Windows 7? It is to laugh.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What does the release of the iPhone 4S have to do with anything let alone the RIM outage???
How are they having "an incredible amount of difficulty". If you mean, say, the availability of a decent web browser and trying to use web apps designed for Mobile Safari (or a particular iOS-only app), then yes, ok.
But messaging? BES Express is not exactly hard to set up, costs nothing, and doesn't even require BES data plans. Heck, you can use BES with Google Apps, or with VMware Zimbra---you don't need Exchange/Notes/GroupWise.
If BlackBerry is "incredibly difficult" then you've either got a very bespoke infrastructure, or deep-seated problems that iOS/Android only gloss over.
BlackBerries have their problems (app scarcity, developer hostility, a subpar browser, unintuitive menu/interface choices, a terrible touchscreen keyboard), don't get me wrong, but integration typically isn't one of them.
--srj/mmv
difficulty connecting to their enterprise services
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
This.
Yes, you can use EAS or IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV to get an iOS, Android or WM/WP device to work, but none of them are anywhere near as secure or manageable as BES. For the consumer or light business user, yes, EAS is fine, and geeks can suffer with IMAP+DAV and it's limitations, but as you increase either the number of users or the security and manageability requirements, they don't scale. Anyone who says otherwise has never actually used BES and has no idea what it does.
That said, as soon as someone duplicates what BES can do on iOS, Android and/or WP, BlackBerry is dead to the enterprise. It'll be Symbian all over again, and RIM will be left selling featurephones to teenagers, third-worlders, and third-world teenagers.
There's some question as to whether or not RIM can even port what BES can do to their next-generation devices. The absence of BES manageability hurt the PlayBook's chances in the enterprise more than anything else about it, and the PlayBook runs that same platform. I get the impression that the infrastructure is old, creaky and not all that well understood by RIM's own people.
--srj/mmv
Atleast your nick is fitting.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I was going to give you a long list of reasons why you're wrong, but I've already done it for several other idiots like you.
If you think BB's methodology is 'secure' then you simply have no clue what you're talking about. It is inherintly less secure BY DESIGN than any standard iPhone or Android configuration. It is the definition of MITM problem.
I won't argue how the iPhone fits in, but your implying that the blackberry is different and more secure which is exactly opposite of reality.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You didn't specify what services. "Services" is a pretty generic term: it could mean email and collab, intranet, specific apps, documents, etc.
--srj/mmv
Mmmm you're right. Sorry for the confusion.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
When it goes wrong, they apologize. None of this telling you you're holding it wrong.
(And yeah, I'm getting an iPhone 4S later this year, ha!)
Was it me, or was the Public Affairs person extremely snarky......cutting people off, doing her best to get through it without people being able to answer?
Close, but your contacts and calendar entries will still sync via your Mac if you want them to.
You'll also be able to copy your purchases to each device without your computer, but you'll have to do it manually, it won't happen automatically.
Yes, you can use EAS or IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV to get an iOS, Android or WM/WP device to work, but none of them are anywhere near as secure or manageable as BES. For the consumer or light business user, yes, EAS is fine, and geeks can suffer with IMAP+DAV and it's limitations, but as you increase either the number of users or the security and manageability requirements, they don't scale. Anyone who says otherwise has never actually used BES and has no idea what it does.
I disagree. I manage BES and ActiveSync in an enterprise environment. Some may like BES, but I don't see any real advantage in scalability in my environment. It is much easier to provision an Activesync device since I don't have to provide full access to the user's mailbox to a third party (BES service) user account, not to mention the security implications associated with a privileged account that can access everything in every BB users' mailboxes. If I need an audit trail on a user's mailbox, I would prefer all access to be done through the user's specific account. I find it just as simple to perform a remote wipe for a device through Exchange ActiveSync as I do with BES.
That said, as soon as someone duplicates what BES can do on iOS, Android and/or WP, BlackBerry is dead to the enterprise. It'll be Symbian all over again, and RIM will be left selling featurephones to teenagers, third-worlders, and third-world teenagers.
We're already there. MobileIron, Air-Watch, and Air Patrol are a few options out there. They cost money, but they have the functionality.
Additionally, the C-level administrators generally love the iPhone and iPad unless they have been long-term Blackberry users. Even those are frequently leaning toward the Apple devices. RIM has fallen behind in the usability department, and I am not sure they can catch up.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Honesty is the best policy.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
This is true. On the flipside, the device management with EAS isn't as comprehensive. There's far less that you can actually instruct the device to do, the policy is easier to remove and, on Android, easy to circumvent. The other issue, and a big win for us, is handling things like password rotation and credentials (via NTLM). It's really, really nice to not have to instruct hundreds of BlackBerry users to change their password or deal with VPNs.
But I do see your point about the interface/usability/development and I agree. RIM has a much harder row to hoe.
--srj/mmv
Let that be a lesson to you: don't buy a Blackberry. Oh, I know, they were so trendy 10 years ago, but technologically, they're junk.
They have every one of their devices dependent on their servers. Every email you receive goes through RIM's servers, and their servers aren't really that reliable. Why do that to yourself? Why introduce another extraneous point of failure, and another vector for security breaches?
Just get decent phone.
Funny how even here on Slashdot no-one seems to know how the BlackBerry infrastructure is controlled. Is it Linux? Is it an in-house Unix monster? Is it from Redmond?
My bet is that it is some ungodly combo of all three that is a nightmare to update because of differing db migration requirements. Sounds like the network infrastructure at RIM is not contiguous and most likely has severe incompatibilities within itself! Maybe their servers are being screwed over by outsourced closed source server os software that they cannot re write.
I am not an AC so if anyone does read this please do not think me ignorant of the /. mod system..... just I cannot remember my password my handle was Ratfynk once upon a time when things made sense here and we did mod good ac comments!
No phones will be unlocked until at least november, sold directly from apple initially.
That's what I thought at first as well, but not so!
Second, nor Verizon or Sprint are GSM.
No, but the iPhone 4S specifically can work with either GSM or CDMA providers.
It just so happens that both offer very nice unlock policies to let you use SIM cards in other countries:
http://www.macworld.com/article/162960/2011/10/how_international_is_the_iphone_4s_world_phone_.html#lsrc.twt_jsnell
90 days out for Verizon, 0 days for Sprint.
But that is not the best part, the best part is that you could get a subsidized phone from Sprint or Verizon and just pay the $200, then you get what is essentially an unlocked iPhone since you can use it with any GSM carrier you can buy a micro-sim from!
This means that people who travel a lot internationally are now much better off getting a Verizon or Sprint phone, and then using SIM cards overseas.
That leads me to think AT&T may finally loosen the locking restriction, after all what does it hurt them in the U.S. if you can switch out a sim card?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
RIM is sooo slow, that the lack of connectivity of the earthquake is happening now!
It's funny when Microsoft complains about other software demanding too many resources.
Actually though, my point was that even that level of ActiveSync "integration" only works with Exchange. You want some Groupwise lovin', you need a BES.
So basically, I proved you wrong, so you spent 15 minutes Googling unrelated iPhone problems in order to change the subject.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'm not saying any Microsoft server patches have anything to do with this, just remembering how great it was for MSN when an update knocked AOL's TCP/IP stack out the door and all those users were offered a nice MSN account. And how Microsoft told the judge it was a bug and it would be fixed in just a few months.
or not.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Hi everyone, I just found out about this contest to create a new application called The Mobile Apps Showdown... I think it's awesome as it enables regular people to actually contribute and vote, and make a difference! As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't live without my itunes and all my games... Also a really cool app that I discovered recently is a Sixt car rental application that enables you to rent a car from your phone...super convenient for people like me who are always on the road ! So what's your favorite app guys? Is anyone participating in this contest?
Didn't an outage just like this kill off the Sidekick and any hope of M$ making money off it's acquisition of Danger?
RIM is in deep seas here. I think there is too much blood in the water now for them to survive this capsizing.
Sure, you can hack up a connection. Just like as if I said the Ford Fiesta was not an offroad vehicle and then you took it into the back country to prove me wrong. Yes you can do it its just not designed for it. So yes, and Android or iPhone can connect to the corporate network in a fashion, but they are not designed as a corporate enterprise phone.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Please do some research before you write nonsense. BB with BES is probably the most secure you can get without going to a special phone designed for government level security.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
" iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while"
Not reliably unless you're using additional hardware/software. And even then not as securely as BlackBerry.
BlackBerries are typically as capable as anything else when it comes to corporate stuff. And in most cases they exceed the competition. As with the automatic corporate phone services for example.
If iPhones really were as good at communication as BlackBerry, Apple wouldn't have needed to steal to create iMessage. Lets see how that does when 70 million subscribers are communicating every day. No doubt in time their service will be as good as RIM's.
So if you don't mind missing the odd email, don't care about true push, and aren't worried about security, use some other technology. TCO might be higher but I'm sure your company can afford the extra.
And any corporation that chooses Android without a significant investment in security technology is crazy.
The best part about having a corporate Blackberry is that I had transparent access to the company's intranet, through the BB server. I've had a Droid X for almost a year now, and there still isn't a good way to seamlessly connect to intranet and internet. Not long ago I got an email from the Android bug tracker, saying that my request for a proxy setting on a per-connection basis has been incorporated into Android. (This is important in that when I'm connected at work I must proxy, and anywhere else I don't.) The less good news is that it's been fixed in release 3.0, which will probably never be available on my phone.
So, when I gave up my blackberry, I lost convenient access to the company intranet. In a year or so when I get my next phone, if it runs Honeycomb, I'll finally have what the BB had at the turn of the century. Better late than never, I guess.
And yes, I'm well aware that I can fix this if I root my phone. But the phone belongs to the company, not me personally.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.