The whole point of the BB is the total end-to-end solution. The competitors are getting closer each year. What I see from my users the biggest gripe of the BB solution, is the handhelds themselves. It's never the services. Contrast that with other handhelds. yeah people gripe about those handhelds too, but I'll often get complaints of trouble getting access or emails arriving late, or trouble converting mail with international characters or attachments failing. Or the devices lock up or server services need to be restarted. So you can't have it all.

Out of 25 wireless PDA users, I only have two holdouts. One with a Treo and one with a Jornada palmtop. The Treo user just wants a toy. But get this, he is forced by corporate to carry a BB since email on the Treo is less that 100% reliable, especially internationally. Both devices are on Cingular. The Jornada user wants a notebook computer replacement. Which no BB can be. So in both cases the complaint is the device itself, and not the RIM or BES services.

I am eager to see what develops in this space, but so far nothing has appeared to be a BB-killer yet! I would love to see something with a native Lotus Notes client with Citrix and VPN access.