I understand correctly...

The 8830 (at least my Sprint one did) comes with a holster. When you put the 8830 in the holster, a magnet signals to the Blackberry that it's in "holster" mode and you can tell the Blackberry to act in certain ways (e.g., go into a standby mode, have a different alert profile, etc.).

Only some third party holsters have this magnet, to activate this option. It sounds like this particular product has that magnet.

Is this what you're talking about? Or did I misunderstand?