Alternatives to Blackberry?

RTmarc

Most companies seem to swear by Blackberries and I've used them for years but has anyone had much experience with the alternatives (i.e., smartphones)? The company I just started working with isn't too wild about having to drop $4k on the Blackberry software. What type of money are we talking to get the smartphones setup and going and instantly receive emails?

keatron

Not much money at all if you already have a relatively up-to-date exchange infrastructure. My smartphone PPC 6700 is loaded with outlook which is sync'd to our exchange server. I get the email on my phone as fast as I would at my laptop.

RTmarc

What all is involved in setting it up to foward over to your smartphone? Setting up a forwarder or some sort? Like I said, this is something new for me. I've always used a Blackberry and haven't had much of an opportunity to look into the smartphone setup.

Thanks for the info!

Webmaster

The one Keatron has, and mine:
www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12212
just run Windows Mobile with Outlook. So it involves configuring Outlook very similar as you would on a normal PC (eg. to access an Exchange mailbox, or a pop3 account. I have mine configured to retrieve only the headers, and when I do retrieve an entire message, I leave a copy on the server so I can retrieve it later on my laptop. Apart from a good smartphone, you need a provider that supports internet access, through UMTS or GPRS for example. And then you can have users setup up a VPN connection to the email server.

dubbs112

RTmarc wrote:

The company I just started working with isn't too wild about having to drop $4k on the Blackberry software. What type of money are we talking to get the smartphones setup and going and instantly receive emails?

What are you looking to get on the Blackberry other than email? We support a few here without the software. If you just want to forward email you can setup a contact (the blackberry) in your AD and then forward your users mail to the contact email.

Thats what we do anyway. We couldn't justify the cash either so we found another way. Users recieve all incoming mail on the blackberry and a copy stays in their inbox so they just have to manage the inbox size on the blackberry unit.

Trailerisf

Depends on how many users you have?? You can get the small business BES (comes with 5 cals...but MAX is 15 you can use)

its only $1300 Canadian...

But I have done many installs the exact way that dubbs said... works fine... Just make sure you set the inbox (on blackberry webmail) to delete messages every 3 days or so and you are fine.

garv221

I have the Treo 700w and that works great.

ajs1976

If you have an Exchange 2003 server, you can sync directly with the server. You need a certificate installed on the server. I would recommend purchasing one from one of the major vendors, like Verisign, instead of creating your own. Makes life a lot easier. If you create your own, you have to add the root cert to the device and some of the device will not let you or you need special utilites.

keatron

garv221 wrote:

I have the Treo 700w and that works great.

Garv, I have a 700w as well that I'm "testing" for the next year. I like the device a lot (before my ppc I had a treo 650 with the Palm OS, and I didn't like it at all). There's not much difference if any in functionality and programs in the PPC and the 700w. So 700w is a good choice as well.

Johan's header tip is a good tip also, this keeps me from being stuck with trying to download emails with 5mb attachments when I just need that one important Airline confirmation email.

blargoe

I have the 650, it's all right but I like the 700w from what I've seen of it so far.

Trailerisf

Blackberry is offering their BES server free for 1 license user...

You can buy addtional cals ($$) up to max 15 user

Cool stuff.

RTmarc

Where do you find the BES for free?? I've looked on Blackberry's website and it's $2999 for the software and 1 license. I'm probably missing it but I can't find it anywhere.

garv221

Before the 700w I had the Treo 650 w/ palm and did not like it either. I like the attachement features, I can view PDFs and all office basic files right out of the box. The only issue is getting a call when recieving email, it sometimes freezes.

blargoe

I'm getting frustrated with my 650 so I'm probably going to swap it with a 700w soon.

Trailerisf

Free Bes... Look here RTMarc

https://www.blackberry.com/express/?cp=BAC-BB1

RTmarc

Trailerisf wrote:

Free Bes... Look here RTMarc

https://www.blackberry.com/express/?cp=BAC-BB1

Excellent! Thank you sir.

Trailerisf

If you need help with the install... don't read their 40 pages of crap...I'll send you 3 pages that make sense without leaving huge gaping holes...

Jackasses.

Plantwiz

garv221 wrote:

I have the Treo 700w and that works great.

I love mine!! Just got it and live has become soooooooo much easier (well regarding work that is ). :P

tuscani

I got my 700wx the other day. Great gadget! Any good places for freeware?

panik

Alternatives to Blackberry?

I've got a life instead...

malcybood

blargoe wrote:

I'm getting frustrated with my 650 so I'm probably going to swap it with a 700w soon.

I've had a Treo 650 for over 2 months and it syncs to Novell Groupwise through ZENWorks for handhelds. Although it's advertised as a multifunction device it doesn't seem to be able to perform multi functional tasks!

If the phone is doing a sync to the ZEN server (downloading emails/attachments/contacts or whatever you can't make or receive calls. According to Palm this is "Functioning as Designed"! hummmm

Bluetooth is crap on this device....it does work but is flakey even with the Treo bluetooth headset!

The voice quality is good through the handset as opposed to the early generation of smartphones/blackberrys etc.

Overall I can live with it and it is not that bad a device. It saves me carrying what I had before Blackberry, mobile and laptop! We had the old purple blackberrys before the Palm Treo but only enabled for email/appointments/contacts and not voice due to the poor quality.

You can also do some funky stuff over the air i.e. re-image the device to a standard image "ghost image" if you like through ZEN for handhelds which gives good device management and installs company policies onto the device etc etc but I guess it depends on what your company's requirements are.

Regards

Malc

P.S. this might make you speed up your change of device!
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,39020351,39278273,00.htm

RTmarc

Thanks for the help everyone. We actually ended up going with Blackberry and the Blackberry Enterprise Server Express. I got the 8703e and it's a heckuva device.

Anyway, thanks again!

Trailerisf

Sorry RTMarc, I'm in the middle of a huge install. I haven't been on the forums for a couple weeks. Hopefully your install went well.

RTmarc

Not a problem. After about 10 minutes of reading through the Blackberry installation guide I threw it in the garbage and just went on without their "assistance".

Trailerisf

Haha.. I ignored their "pre-checklist" not realizing it almost was the instructions.

Its amazing the minut details they cover, then suddenly skip out entire steps.

Like I said. 3 pages is all you need... easy install