I have been a Windows Mobile user for about 3-4 years and recently got a BlackBerry Curve. I am really beginning to wonder what the big deal is about the BlackBerry phones compared to the Windows Mobile phones. The Windows Mobile data plans are almost half the price as the BlackBerry plans. Plus the other thing I have found it the E-Mail use is much better on the Windows Mobile phones. On the BlackBerry you can only see 30 days worth of e-mail and on the Windows Mobile phones you can see all E-Mails. Also on my BlackBerry my BIS E-Mails accounts do not delete messages on the server when deleting them on the phone where the WM does on both POP3 and IMAP accounts and on WM I can see all subfolders on IMAP accounts where on the BB you can not. The biggest thing I hear about the BlackBerry is the push E-Mail but if I receive an E-Mail from my exchange account they come in within seconds on each other so WM does have full push E-Mail. Other than having the ability to monitor or control the phone in a business I don’t see what the big deal is. If someone can let me know other features I am missing please let me know. I’m not complaining about the BB but I’m just trying to understand what the big deal is.

Wirelessly posted

What you say is true but BB has a security edge that Windows can't match. The OS is also more stable than Windows as long as you don't experiment with an OS that may not yet be proven by your carrier.

If you are a business user than it works without the glitz that Windows provides. My company has had both and we came back to BB.

Hello there, yes I'm finding that security is the main difference between the 2 devices but for the standard user I can't see much of a difference. I myself find the E-Mail support to be much better on WM devices but that's just my opinion. I'm happy to have one of each right now and I can't wait to get a mogul because this touch just does not cut it for e-mailing and texting.

Many people find that the BlackBerry is much more stable than WM devices. Between stability, BES integration and security, very few BlackBerry users go back to WM devices. Can't recall the last one I used.

I have not had any stability issues with my HTC S620, HTC Touch, or back when I had the HTC 6600. I'm happy with one of each with the WM being my personal phone and the BB my work phone. BTW, nice avatar and go J-E-T-S.

Then you have found a good combination that works for you.

I have a BB Curve and a HTC TYTN II. I *try* to like the WM6.1 device, honestly i do. I currently have my SIM in it, with a custom ROM (Hyperdragon). I'm a geek I should love it! It does everything! But the BB is just more usable. My BB does not have 3G or Wifi, and not the wealth of available software. It just doesn't do as much, but what it does do, RIM have made very easy to use and actually thought about the user experience. WM6.1 is a great PDA, with a poor phone attached. Having to use a stylus really annoys me.

When I get a Bold/Storm, I'm sure that the WM device wont get a look in.

Just my thoughts.

to see your emails for more than 30 days just go to msgs>options>general options>keep messages and make your change.
also to delete on the phone/server go to msgs>options>email reconciliation>delete on and make your change.
I used a windows device (or 7 different ones) for over a year before finally giving up on WM. I could generally count on a 5 to 15 minute wait for email, and when I upgraded my software it wouldn't allow me to send email from the address I was using at the time unless I was at home and connected to my home network. so much for "mobile". it crashed if you looked at it wrong. it constantly needed hard resets which would cause me to lose every email/text msg I had. then general functions on the phone itself would go awry. to this day I see a touch screen and my skin crawls. if you have a good one that works then more power to you.
edit: that choke avatar is classic.

Yeah, what TeritaM said. I was about to say that you can keep e-mail forever if you want... Explore your phone and all the options before you judge it.

After I activated my BB on the BES I do not see all e-mails and I do have my phone set to keep messages "forever". On my WM device as soon as I set it up I get all e-mails from exchange. Yes I do have my e-mail reconciliation set to delete on both but it never does on hotmail or my POP3 E-Mail. I think my IMAP account does delete on both but not the others. I've never had a problem with my WM device crashing but I do not like the touch screen for messaging but my HTC S620 was great for that. Of course I have not had any problems with my BB either but it lacks a few things and I do have a few issues with BIS E-Mail. But overall it is a very nice phone but it just lacks some e-mail features I'm used to.

TeritaM: I'm glad you enjoy the avatar,

Have to agree with you on this one. Ive been using the Dopod D810 (HTC P3600) and am also using the BB Pearl. I really am not sure what the fuss is about. My Dopod has had GPS enabled since i got it and have since installed applications like Tomtom navigator for directions.

The down side for me specifically is the lack of a keyboard but i could have just as easily got the HTC Touch Pro and it would have been sorted.

My personal experience, i do find WM unstable at times but its usually at least a week before i need to reboot the phone.

The part i love most is the ability to connect via Wifi and use skype for VOIP calls. You cant do that on a Pearl but am not sure about the Curve or the Bold.

Overall i do find both BB and Iphone trying to catch up with the WM phones cause they havent exactly introduced anything new in terms of functionality.

Just my $0.02.

On security: I've heard that numerous times, but I've never see what that actually means. Can somebody please explain how a BB is more secure than a WM6.1 phone? I mean, does one support SSL for browsers and the other doesn't? Does one use encryption to transmit email back and forth and the other doesn't? Does on use encryption on OTA sync of Contacts and Calendar items and the other doesn't? Beyond those things, what does having "security" on the device really mean?

On stability: I can't really see how anybody could make that claim if you're comparing anything to a BB Storm...

Thanks for any enlightenment.

I don't know what BB you are attempting to use, but all of the things you claim your BB doesn't do, it actually does do, you just have to set it for those options.

I agree. I hear that about security too but AFAIK a Windows Mobile phone can be just as secure as a BB. From what I've heard you can do the same things to secure a Win Mobile phone that can be done with a BB.

I would also like to know about the security. Somebody, please answer. :P

One difference is that Windows Mobile devices can be infected with viruses and worms, BlackBerrys currently cannot.

All of my settings are correct. WM simply manages e-mail a lot better and support two way sync. On the blackberry if I delete or read anything on my hotmail or yahoo it does not delete them off of the server and on WM it does. Also on WM I can see all subfolders on both hotmail, yahoo, and through exchange and all work great as far as a two way sync goes.

I don't see how that can be true. A virus is basically just an evil program someone wrote. The only way a BB could never be infected is if nothing could be installed on it. It's not as if a Win Mobile phone just magically is infected by visiting Google.com or sitting near a hacker. The delivery of a virus or worm is the same for all platforms - something is installed that should not be either by someone taking the device or the user installing something they should not.

A virus/worm is just a program or piece of code. Only way to totally prevent one is to never allow any code to be installed.

i have two pocket pc phones and i am trying to sell them and get a black berry, the one thing my pocket pc has done fairly well is email which i live by, i have alot of emails that i keep in folders stored on my device for reference because i end up going back to them for some form of message data / or attachments i wanted to know how are emails handled because i have messages from feb to now and about 157mb in attachments and i want to know if it will be able to be carried over on a blackberry & a mem card?

Ok, let me rephrase that. There are no current known viruses for BlackBerrys. There are a couple of spy applications, but not viruses/trojans. The spy applications can be installed if someone has access to the device.

There have been and are viruses targeting Win Mobile devices, but not many thus far. Symbian is has been the most attacked mobile platform and has been infected through vulnerabilities in the OS. This article is from 2006, but is still relevant.

Viruslist.com - Mobile Malware Evolution: An Overview, Part 1

This one for Windows Mobile has backdoor capabilities.
Computer Security Research - McAfee Avert Labs Blog

From two months ago:
New mobile virus goes 'old school' - Security - iTnews Australia

The BlackBerry OS APIs ane security features are locked down very tight mking it very hard to hack or infect, and none of the known mobile viruses to date can infect a BlackBerry.

I hate to argue the point but imo there is a huge difference between being unable to infect a device and a device not being infected as much as others. That appears to be the case. One of the articles you quoted even cited one big reason for the Symbian hacks was most phones run on it. The same could be easily said for Vista/XP in the pc world compared to all others. Just because an OS is attacked more than others doesn't necessarily mean it's more vulnerable than others - it could mean the hackers are just going for the biggest splash.

Unless you can point me to something specific, there isn't anything about the BB OS that makes it any less vulnerable to attack. One of the articles you included talked about a game or utility program in China that infected many phones and used the phones to send information to the coder. What exactly about the BB OS would prevent that from happening? Is it impossible to code a program that sends messages?

I think it can be done just as easily as it can be done on the other platforms. I just think it's a matter of coders going for the larger market. I'd say you have more success getting your virus infected game installed on Win Mobile than BB.

The only other possibility besides the user downloading and installing the virus would be infection via simple web browsing. This is where the device / OS could make it's name as being superior to others but as far as I know there aren't any stats on this.

Not being a coder of developer myself, I can't explain the BlackBerry OS technology, however look at these statistics on market share of mobile devices. They are from q 3 2007, but you can see BlackBerry has a much larger market share than Symbian and a slightly larger share than Windows Mobile. The Symbian slice of that pie is small.

Smartphone marketshare showdown in 2008: iPhone vs. Windows Mobile vs. BlackBerry | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

The reason there are no stats on the BlackBerry being infected via web browsing is that it has not happened.

For the love of god, PLEASE show me where a Blackberry has EVER been infected with anykind of malware or virus. Yes there are spy programs out there but they MUST BE INSTALLED ON THE DEVICE MANUALLY. You can NOT go to a webpage, no matter how it's coded and it will install it without prompting the user first. I've seen first hand MANY Windows Mobile devices crash because of malware and badly coded websites.

It the device isn't so secure then why is it the number 1 device for the US Government? They check these things out much deeper then any carrier does before the certify them.

Maybe you should step back, take a breath, and define a few things for me.

You say that a BB has never been infected with a virus yet you say that spyware must be installed. This implies that a virus is put on a device via means other than install. If so, how does a WM device get infected with a virus without the user doing an install. If not, then why do you try point out a difference between a virus being installed or not being installed? Unless you realize that a virus can be installed on both if the user allows it which makes both equally susceptable.

You also mention WM devices "crash" due to a website but I'm not sure why you think a crash is a virus or malware. AFAIK the topic at hand was vulnerability to attack and not stability. If you want to talk stability then I will give up now and give you that but I'm sticking with vulnerability right now.

Also with a little searching I found something that implies WM is certified for government work. It's like I said before (but maybe not here), when managed by a corporate server, both BB and WM devices can be equally secure if the person who manages them takes all the necessary precautions. Both offer the same level of encryption on the data being transmitted, both can be wiped remotely, and both can be password protected. So I fail to see why one is vastly superior when both employ the same protection techniques.

I have no doubt that a BB is secure but I think there is too much hype about it being overly secure to something like WM. From what I read on both RIM and MSFT's websites on their enterprise solutions, they offer the exact same protection. So when someone implies that BB is vastly superior it makes me wonder what I'm missing - or what RIM isn't advertising. I assume if they had such a huge lead over everyone else they'd put it right on the website for everyone to see.

As near as I can tell, the BES and the WM equivalent offer all the same security options.

That lists just North America. I think the article I first read said that the very first mobile phone virus was written to target Symbian because it was the most popular, and it started in Europe.

I have never managed a BES server but just from my own experience with corporate email I know that we have really good email filters to keep spam out. I would guess that BES does the exact same thing. Cutting down on "Click here for a free game" emails goes a long way to stopping infections. I'm also guess that something exists to make sure that the corporate phones can not text or can only text to other members of the network, which would also cut down on the infections.

The thing that I keep saying but no one likes to hear is that you can do those exact same things in a corporate world with WM phones.

I'd love to see something that excludes all corporate phones. IMO it's the consumer phones that are getting infected and the only fair comparison is to lump consumer with consumer. A comparison of corporate only would be nice if they made sure that each corporation used the same security options. Else there is too much apples and oranges going on.

Spyware and viruses are 2 very different things. There is a spyware program called Flexi-spy and a program that allows someone to read all sms messages online. Those 2 programs have to be installed manually on a BlackBerry and given permissions as well.

Viruses are file infectors -- they add malicious code to existing files and replicate themselves to spread. There are no viruses for the BlackBerry. Viruses and worms can spread in many ways without any user interaction. The Windows operating system has many known security vulnerabilities (a huge understatement) -- that's why Microsoft releases security patches every month. Windows Mobile devices run on a Windows based operating system that also has vulnerabilities.

BlackBerry's operating system is coded such that is is locked down very tightly, so that malicous code cannot inflitrate it, much like Linux operating systems on computers. Code that runs on the Windows OS will not run on Linux or Macs, and will not run on BlackBerrys.

I have gone to websites wiith known exploits for Windows on my BlackBerry. Nothing happens -- the sites won't load in the browser and sometimes I've gotten "unknown file type" . I've clicked on links to trojan malware... malicous executables on my BlackBerry and all that happens is an error message. I've tried to save malicious executables to my BlackBerry and they won't save and they won't run.

When the first BlackBerry virus, worm, trojan, or exploit is found it will make big news. Thus far none have been found.

I'm still not sure how you think a WM device is infected. I assume we can eliminate a user who installs a virus because that can happen on any device. So it sounds like you think a WM device can be infected by just hitting a web site which I can't find a record of, at least not recently.

A virus cannot magically install itself on any device. It needs someone to open the door (install) or it needs an open window like a listening service. The classic examples are IIS for web servers and SQL or database servers which are created to just listen for commands. I'm just not seeing these "many known security vulnerabilities".

Related to the topic, it seems that the top rated security devices are based on Windows CE but it does say that both BB and WM are able to work with "sensitive, but unclassified" data. If WM were so bad I'm not sure why it would be put in the same boat by the government as BB, unless what I'm saying has some truth to it and both can be made secure through proper administration. Or maybe I'm wrong.

I think this will help explain.

Viruslist.com - Three Criteria for Malware Existence

Near the bottom of the page:
About the two mobile viruses mentioned:
Viruslist.com - Worm.SymbOS.Cabir.a

Runs on Windows CE:
Viruslist.com - Virus.WinCE.Duts.a

The BlackBerry platform runs on Java. Refer to the last paragraph in the quoted article.

Some info from RIM about BlackBerry security. This explains why an email attachment can't infect a BlackBerry.

View Document


White paper:
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Page 10 explains how RIM controls the APIs.

Let me try to summarize my point with some quotes. First, I like this quote on how to build a good architecture.

I think the key here is "there have been no viruses or Trojans which pose a serious threat written in Java for a long time, though non-viable proof of concept malware does occasionally appear". This does not say ever, or that it cannot happen. It also goes on to say that malware was created after vulnerabilities in the JVM were published, which seems to be the same road for MSFT (both pc and mobile) malware.

Now, against that information, I'd like to include this quote on how many view the BB security features.

This is what I'm arguing against. It's this and the purely anecdotal argument that goes along the lines of "if there isn't any virus reported to date then it's impossible to infect". It's similar to the argument that Linux must be superior to Windows OS security because the volume of viruses is larger (and not maybe because the hackers are targeting the larger audience).

Against that I'd like to quote this which I think says what I've been trying to say about how both can be secure if you put forth an effort.

All I'm trying to say is that some of the arguments I've seen are emotional and anecdotal. While a BB virus may not exist that doesn't mean that it's even been tried. People used to think Apple was immune until some hacker got fed up and gave it a try.

Also you can flip the WM argument the other way. More MSFT viruses may exist because more MSFT OS devices exist. Just because it's MSFT don't automatically think it's all bad. If the government sees fit to put BB and WM into the same security classification, and even put Win CE beyond those two into the ultra secure mobile device, it must mean that there is something, just a little something, that MSFT is doing right with security. Unless we want to say the government was totally stupid in their choosing the Win CE and WM phones being used today and that seems like a political topic.

Perhaps I am coming across as being too biased so I'll just let this be my last post on the topic as to not upset people more.

OK, I'm pathetic. I couldn't help but keep thinking about this quote below. While having RIM control what can or cannot be installed on your device will limit the number of applications that you have available (compared to a device which doesn't have such rules), I admit this is a great way to be secure. However I'm not sure that is very different from any other device that requires digital signatures from reliable sources.

On the other hand, MDM for WM appears to allow a company to totally limit what can be installed on a device, much the same way a company can do the same with something like a laptop. So if the goal is to protect the device and prevent the user from installing a virus I would think this an impressive protection option availble for WM. Of course a company has to choose to USE that feature.

From what I've read the MDM provides a lot of similar if not identical security methods that the BES provides. It's just a matter if a company uses those methods.

A vulnerability gap may exist between the two but I'm not so sure it's as extreme as perceived.

No really. I'll let it go this time. I think.

I've been following this thread because I think the topic is very interesting, and I have to say a good case has been made on both sides. I have to agree with pretzelb, that there seems to be sufficient evidence to show that both BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices can be equally secure if they are set up and handled properly.

I think Windows Mobile typically gets a bad rep because of the open source applications they allow. In many cases, it is up to the user to research and decide if an app is safe to use or not. But, I don't think this has to do with the potential security of the device; the user would be responsible for any such action. These instances would then not go under the "if set up and handled properly" category.

The BES admin can also totally control a BlackBerry and its security. Page 4 -15 of this PDF that I quoted from previously.

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