BlackBerrymageddon?

[Mark Johnson]

I'm not trolling! Honest! I'm actually seriously asking (as someone who has never used a BlackBerry) why the threat of a BlackBerry shutdown is being hyped in the news as the Utter End Of Life On Earth As We Know It.

Could any BlackBerry users out there educate me a little on why it would be such a big deal? It seems to me that any of the PPC/cell phone combo units (like a Treo) do the same thing, so you just switch handsets.

Is this a case where people have been "locked in" to a [email protected] email address as part of the service? I would have never wanted service from anyone that didn't let me use my own pop3 account on my own domain, so I'm just kind of thinking: "dude, get a Treo or an HP hw6500 and point it to your company's pop3 server."

I'm really not trying to "downplay" the event for those folks who are going to be seriously inconvenienced by a shutdown. I'm just puzzled why news reports make it seem like BlackBerry is a one-of-a-kind animal.

[Phronetix]

I am no expert in the law, nor do I know how easy or hard a switch to a competing platform would be. Having said that, I just don't see RIM getting shut down. The US Congress, for example, is teeming with these devices. Entire businesses run on this platform. They are so good at what they do.

The law may be the law, but then again, didn't a certain operating system manufacturer weasle it's way out of legal trouble a few years ago?

[Sven Johannsen]

It is a one of a kind animal, and will be until MSs system using Exchange SP2 and MSFP on PPCs is totally out (soon).

The uniqueness is Push e-mail. As soon as your email system gets a message for you it is pushed to your BB. You often get your e-mail notification on your BB before you get it sitting at your desk in front of a mail client on the same network as the server. People who believe that they have to have instant e-mail live by this capability. I can see some reasonable uses, letting me know the stock has peaked or is about to tank, might be something I want to know before the 30 min cycle I have set to retreive e-mail. The E-mail to the company President requireing a quick decision might need some due speed. In most cases, my feeling is if it is that important, call me, txt me, something. There are other options besides e-mail. But the Crackberry users don't see it that way and the speed and convenience are now part of the normal business climate.

Imagine if your microwave was suddenly taken away. You'd survive, but you would have to revert to doing a lot of things the way you used to and change your lifestyle a bit. Imagine if broadband internet all of a sudden went away and we all went back to dial-up.

BB's customer base is not as much individuals as corporations. The use is entrenched in their business practises, they are purchased by the co. and issued to execs and key personnel.

[Janak Parekh]

Is this a case where people have been "locked in" to a [email protected] email address as part of the service? I would have never wanted service from anyone that didn't let me use my own pop3 account on my own domain, so I'm just kind of thinking: "dude, get a Treo or an HP hw6500 and point it to your company's pop3 server."
It's more the fact that corporations have deployed Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and the hardware devices. If you've got 10,000 deployed out there, it's a lot of work to provision, test and configure an alternate solution.

And, POP3 doesn't really scale to the kinds of things Blackberry/Exchange Activesync can do. Push is one. Capacities and the efficiency of POP3 over a wireless interface is another. Synchronization is a third.

--janak

[Mark Johnson]

Aha! I'm getting it.

So Joe Chairman of BigCorp is still using an email account like [email protected] but if I send him a message he not only gets it in his Outlook when it checks every 15 minutes (normal email) but also immediately gets a BlackBerry notice about it.

Does he get a bazillion BlackBerry notices a day for each piece of spam sent to [email protected] too?

How do they handle that? Is the BlackBerry address a "world reachable" email address or do they close the system? Do they restrict the bb notices so that anyone anywhere can spam [email protected] as usual but only messages from *@bigcorp.com get passed on to his bb?

[Janak Parekh]

So Joe Chairman of BigCorp is still using an email account like [email protected] but if I send him a message he not only gets it in his Outlook when it checks every 15 minutes (normal email) but also immediately gets a BlackBerry notice about it.
Actually, Exchange pushes email to Outlook, so the email appears both on his desktop and on his Blackberry near-instantaneously (within seconds). Replies from his Blackberry are seamless; they come from his email address and are automatically dumped into his desktop's Sent Items. Optionally, he can set up delete/read sync so that deleted messages are deleted on the desktop as well.

Does he get a bazillion BlackBerry notices a day for each piece of spam sent to [email protected] too?
Not with effective spam-filtering, which can be integrated server-side.

How do they handle that? Is the BlackBerry address a "world reachable" email address or do they close the system? Do they restrict the bb notices so that anyone anywhere can spam [email protected] as usual but only messages from *@bigcorp.com get passed on to his bb?
I believe BES does have filtering ability, but I'm not 100% sure -- I haven't installed BES in years -- and that's not the point. The point is to have a desktop-class email experience in your pocket.

And there are lots of markets in which near-instantaneous email has immense value. Situations where there are contract deadlines, proposal deadlines, etc. Often, these involve potentially globally-distributed larger workgroups and attachments, so phone calls are not always practical. "Email workflow" has become very pervasive in a number of markets. It's not always the best way, but it is a common bottom-line denominator that works in nearly every organization and between organizations.

--janak