Thought I was done with this place (Question Re: Synch options)

[Peregrine]

-Background- (Skip down to see questions if you don't want to read this part)

Hey all. VERY long time, no see. I about died when my user/pass worked on the first try because I have not been here in EONS. (Apologies to the dude that asked me a question via PM in Apr-2007, when I left the mega firm and stopped coming here lol)
I used to be one of many IT Guys at one of the worlds largest law firms. We were a BB shop. I was THE BB Support guy/BES admin in our largest office. I know BES and BB's like the back of my hand. Quit that job and took one at a tiny firm as the IT Manager. Ruler of my own domain!!! mwahahahaha! :evil looking smiley:
We are a Windows Mobile Shop. Love Windows Mobile and the Exchange integration and for a small firm like this, the cost of it is perfect (free).
FFWD to last week. One of the partners here has been BEGGING me to let him get a BB for months. He adores the look and feel of the Pearl.
I caved. I let him get one.

VZW assured me we could get this to work fine with our system w/o a BES. At my old job we hated redirector, but I thought 'hey it's been a long time, maybe it's much better now'. It's not. It sucks. Hasn't changed a bit. It is driving my attny crazy. It only FWD's email STILL? There is no synching email back to the device? Are you serious? This is so incredibly lame. Nothing like having to synch your device with a cable so the email gets marked "READ" in your Inbox. Really disappointed that RIM has not perfected any way for this to work properly without a BES. I used to think RIM was going to become the largest and best corporate email device (and I was rooting for them), but now I feel they are in trouble. How do they expect to compete with Windows Mobile when I can synch all my employee phones perfectly at no charge?


-Questions-

All I know is BES so bear with me.

Q1:
Could I get email synching better somehow by using BIS? Don't care about CAL or Contacts. He can synch those with the cable, no big deal. Just want email to be marked READ in both places.

Q2:
I did find that RIM will let me have a 'BES' for one user only for free. I downloaded it. As I said we are a small shop. I only have 2 servers. Exchange and a File Server. I am hesitant to install BES on my File Server because I don't want to over burden my precious file server. It's running so perfectly now, I don't want to mess with it. What kind of a load does this put on a server? Am I being overly concerned and protective of my File Server? At my old job we had so many servers that we were able to dedicate one to just the BES (plus the fact that we had 300 BB's in service it only made sense). He does not get what I would call an excessive amount of email, but a fair amount to be sure.

Any opinions or advice appreciated.

[zerog46]

Not that I can answer your question, but I don't think you'll get to much help when the first thing you do is bash BB's and Rim...

[rambo47]

BES is supposed to go on a dedicated server. You could use an older desktop computer that's been retired to host the single-user BES express software. But it should have it's own system. I'd keep everything away from the file server.

BIS will not synchronize email with your desktop AFAIK. Maybe the best solution for one user would be some kind of hosted BES service. They're usually an extra $20 per month or so and give you the full BES treatment.

[rambo47]

There's a solution for BIS/Outlook Sync in beta testing: http://www.blackberryforums.com/aftermarket-software/106646-ota-full-outlook-sync-needs-beta-testers-bis-users.html
This sounds EXACTLY like what you need.

[djm2]

-Background- (Skip down to see questions if you don't want to read this part)

Hey all. VERY long time, no see. I about died when my user/pass worked on the first try because I have not been here in EONS. (Apologies to the dude that asked me a question via PM in Apr-2007, when I left the mega firm and stopped coming here lol)
I used to be one of many IT Guys at one of the worlds largest law firms. We were a BB shop. I was THE BB Support guy/BES admin in our largest office. I know BES and BB's like the back of my hand. Quit that job and took one at a tiny firm as the IT Manager. Ruler of my own domain!!! mwahahahaha! :evil looking smiley:
We are a Windows Mobile Shop. Love Windows Mobile and the Exchange integration and for a small firm like this, the cost of it is perfect (free).
FFWD to last week. One of the partners here has been BEGGING me to let him get a BB for months. He adores the look and feel of the Pearl.
I caved. I let him get one.

VZW assured me we could get this to work fine with our system w/o a BES. At my old job we hated redirector, but I thought 'hey it's been a long time, maybe it's much better now'. It's not. It sucks. Hasn't changed a bit. It is driving my attny crazy. It only FWD's email STILL? There is no synching email back to the device? Are you serious? This is so incredibly lame. Nothing like having to synch your device with a cable so the email gets marked "READ" in your Inbox. Really disappointed that RIM has not perfected any way for this to work properly without a BES. I used to think RIM was going to become the largest and best corporate email device (and I was rooting for them), but now I feel they are in trouble. How do they expect to compete with Windows Mobile when I can synch all my employee phones perfectly at no charge?


-Questions-

All I know is BES so bear with me.

Q1:
Could I get email synching better somehow by using BIS? Don't care about CAL or Contacts. He can synch those with the cable, no big deal. Just want email to be marked READ in both places.

Q2:
I did find that RIM will let me have a 'BES' for one user only for free. I downloaded it. As I said we are a small shop. I only have 2 servers. Exchange and a File Server. I am hesitant to install BES on my File Server because I don't want to over burden my precious file server. It's running so perfectly now, I don't want to mess with it. What kind of a load does this put on a server? Am I being overly concerned and protective of my File Server? At my old job we had so many servers that we were able to dedicate one to just the BES (plus the fact that we had 300 BB's in service it only made sense). He does not get what I would call an excessive amount of email, but a fair amount to be sure.

Any opinions or advice appreciated.

I have been told that the one person Blackberry Professional will install fine on top of SB2003 with no problem. I'm going to do this myself.

[Peregrine]

Not that I can answer your question, but I don't think you'll get to much help when the first thing you do is bash BB's and Rim...

OMG, spare me. You call that "bashing"?!?!
I may have bashed the Desktop Redirect, but that happens here all the time. I even mentioned I was rooting for RIM. I would hate to see RIM go down in flames. I do hate Micorsoft, but facts are facts and using Exchange with Windows Mobile is the way many companies will wind up going if RIM doesn't solve the "must buy a $1,000 piece of software, and dedicate a server, to work with MS Exchange".
I said I was disappointed with RIM. That's bashing? If they could get GOOD synching without a BES they would crush Microsoft.
Thanks for contributing nothing to this thread.
This was never one of those forums where people aren't allowed to criticize the company.

Thank you Rambo and DJM2. Much appreciated. When are you planning to do that DJM2? If soon PLEASE report back here.

/off to read Rambo's link....

[djm2]

Thank you Rambo and DJM2. Much appreciated. When are you planning to do that DJM2? If soon PLEASE report back here.

/off to read Rambo's link....

I have a request to my IT guy to come and do the install next week. This is the system that he runs, so he is quite confident that it will be OK.

[zerog46]

My bad I took it the wong way, bad day at work.

[Sith_Apprentice]

actually for only a few people (15) i run the BES on the same server as my Exchange, with no issues whatsoever. BPS is designed specifically to be installed on the mail server. as to your post title, we thought we were done with you too :razz:

[kjjb0204]

OMG, spare me. You call that "bashing"?!?!
I may have bashed the Desktop Redirect, but that happens here all the time. I even mentioned I was rooting for RIM. I would hate to see RIM go down in flames. I do hate Micorsoft, but facts are facts and using Exchange with Windows Mobile is the way many companies will wind up going if RIM doesn't solve the "must buy a $1,000 piece of software, and dedicate a server, to work with MS Exchange".
I said I was disappointed with RIM. That's bashing? If they could get GOOD synching without a BES they would crush Microsoft.
Thanks for contributing nothing to this thread.
This was never one of those forums where people aren't allowed to criticize the company.

Thank you Rambo and DJM2. Much appreciated. When are you planning to do that DJM2? If soon PLEASE report back here.

/off to read Rambo's link....
Something called TCO comes into play here. Upfront costs might be more with the bb solution vs wm, but over the long term, ease of use, reduced burden on the IT staff, etc. all leads to lower total cost of ownership. Anyone looking strictly at the upfront implementation costs is, for lack of a better term, an idiot.

[Peregrine]

All good, Zero. ;)

LOL Sith. I certainly didn't mean the title in a negative way.
Having owned many many BB's, starting with the original pager sized 857 > the 1st Pearl, I am actually a huge fan of RIM. I only stopped coming because I quit that job.
If I could have switched everyone to a BES, I would. But free vs. the expense of the BES... hard sell there.

ANYWAY thanks for that tidbit. I swear I did look at the tech specs before, but checking it again, I see that I read it wrong. The first line says SEPERATE SERVER. But they are saying IF you use it on a seperate server, here's your hardware req'. Then IF you put it on Exchange here's your req's. That's the part I missed. Used to the BES which CANNOT be on your Exchange box.


Hardware Requirements:
BlackBerry® Professional Software installed on a separate server, with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Express installed by the setup application on the same server)

Intel® Pentium® IV processor (1.5 GHz or more)
1 GB or more of available RAM
BlackBerry Professional Software installed on a Microsoft® Windows® Small Business Server or Microsoft® Exchange Server, with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express installed by the setup application on the same server

Intel Pentium IV processor (2 GHz or more)
1.5 GB or more of available RAM

My Exchange server is a powerhouse that does nothing but Exchange. Even has like 100GIGS of free space. This should run wonderfully on it. I almost have tears in my eyes that I can use the BES with my bosses BB. I am SUCH a geek. ;)

Thanks for all your help guys!!!

[Sith_Apprentice]

not a problem. and hey, you can probably get a single CAL for you too if you talk your boss into it, then you can have your BB back

[Peregrine]

Something called TCO comes into play here. Upfront costs might be more with the bb solution vs wm, but over the long term, ease of use, reduced burden on the IT staff, etc. all leads to lower total cost of ownership. Anyone looking strictly at the upfront implementation costs is, for lack of a better term, an idiot.

I actually disagree here. Keep in mind I have experience with both solutions.

Ease of use? WM6 is not hard to use. As opposed to the BB which has a bit of a learning curve the 1st time you use one. I use to give my users a 45 minute spiel on how to use the BB. My spiel on Wm6 is 20 minutes.

There is nothing to install on your server which means it takes NONE of my time to set up. Reduced burden on IT Staff? We have had WM6 since I started here and I never have to do anything with my employees' phones. I mean NOTHING. As opposed to my last job where I was bombarded with BB questions so much I was going to change my title from Client/Server Analyst to BB Support Analyst.

TCO Advantage = Windows Mobile.
Love a good debate, so if you want to keep this going.....
(Keep in mind, as I said, I am a BB fan)

[Peregrine]

not a problem. and hey, you can probably get a single CAL for you too if you talk your boss into it, then you can have your BB back

I haven't had a BB since I left the last job. His is the only one we have.
I have the SMT 5800 with WM6. Previously the Moto Q with WM5.

[Sith_Apprentice]

i was implying that you could get one to replace your current device, if you are already going to have the infrastructure in place.

[Peregrine]

Aha! Right on!

[Peregrine]

Something called TCO comes into play here. Upfront costs might be more with the bb solution vs wm, but over the long term, ease of use, reduced burden on the IT staff, etc. all leads to lower total cost of ownership. Anyone looking strictly at the upfront implementation costs is, for lack of a better term, an idiot.

Reading through the install instructions, there is no way BES has a lower TCO. It is going to take me an hour at least to completely install the BES Professional version. I never had to do anything at all to get Windows Mobile working on my server. It just works right out of the box.
With a BES you also have to devote time to apply updates and things like that. My server auto updates from MS so I never have to do anything with it. Unfair advantage, of course, but an advantage nonetheless.

BB > WinMobile in almost every way, but TCO is NOT one.

[Peregrine]

No comment Kjjb?

I sincerely hope RIM comes out with something better that does, indeed, have a lower TCO, but the current solution is NOT it. And I sincerely hope you aren't so rude to everyone that comes here for help.
Took nearly 2 hours to set up and required a reboot of my Exchange server which means I had to work after hours. And had to enable IMAP on my server, which I really didn't want to do.
Eh, enough about that....
_________________________________


Getting ready to add my first user. w00t! BB in the house!!!! :D


Many thanks to those of you that were helpful.

[takeshi]

TCO Advantage = Windows Mobile.

What devices are you using? That always seems to be the weak point in our testing. I can't imagine handing out WM devices to end users when they don't even hold up in our own departmental testing. My experiences definitely don't corroborate yours. TCO for WM seems to jump up quite a bit with all the issues that we've had with the WM devices.

[kjjb0204]

No comment Kjjb?

I sincerely hope RIM comes out with something better that does, indeed, have a lower TCO, but the current solution is NOT it. And I sincerely hope you aren't so rude to everyone that comes here for help.
Took nearly 2 hours to set up and required a reboot of my Exchange server which means I had to work after hours. And had to enable IMAP on my server, which I really didn't want to do.


You do understand TCO, correct? It's not based solely on how long it takes you to set it up. How awful that you had to work after hours.

As someone who has used both a bb and wmd, I would never want to go back to a wm solution. Device problems, OS problems, etc. end up costing us more in lost productivity than we probably saved on the initial set up of wm.

[Peregrine]

What devices are you using? That always seems to be the weak point in our testing. I can't imagine handing out WM devices to end users when they don't even hold up in our own departmental testing. My experiences definitely don't corroborate yours. TCO for WM seems to jump up quite a bit with all the issues that we've had with the WM devices.

Treo 700WX, Motorola Q, SMT 5800.
All of these work perfectly with my systems.
The Q occasionally locks up and needs to be reset by pulling the battery.... I expect nothing less from a Microsoft product. LOL Of course, we know this is a fix for many phones and not just WM phones. Other then that I have had
very few issues with WM devices.

Yes, Kjjb, I completely understand what TCO is. Did I say is was all because of initial setup? No, just an example of my time wasted vs. WinMoby. Did I complain that I had to work after hours? Did you even read my previous reply to you? wtf?
No device problems here, no OS problems. Well, there was one problem in 12 months (some of the Treo's were missing the DST patch). But I also remember patching 90 BB's with a DST update, as well, so no comparo there.

I will concede it could be the size of my company. I went from supporting over 90 BB's to supporting 20 WinMoby devices. But they have been solid and trouble free.

Question? (honestly don't know the answer): Is there a recurring fee for the BES or is it just a one time fee?