I've been tasked with getting BES running for a small company. I'm not having much luck.

The install went fine. I have it running on the domain controller (the only server in the company), under an administrative account. It has Administrator access to the Exchange server and permissions on the mailbox I'm currently trying to get working.

I generated and sent a password to the mailbox. An email appeared in the mailbox with a six-character password.

I then went to "Enterprise Activation" on the device (an 8130). I entered the email address of the mailbox and the password. The device then sent an email to the mailbox with a block of characters and instructions to not delete the message as it would be "processed by the server."

And that's where we sit. The device says "Activating..." and the Blackberry Manager on the server says "Initializing" for this user.

The emails are still sitting in the inbox.

What am I missing?

Double check that your provider has applied a Blackberry Data plan to the device. Even if they said they have done so, check again. Every time I have had this issue that was the problem.

How do you ensure this? The device has an option for "Enterprise Activation" -- does this prove anything.

Welcome to the forums.

Verify all the blackberry services are running. What version of BES did you install? You will need to contact verizon and verify the 8130 is provisioned for BES access. The "enterprise activation" option is a default option on the device. The only way to be sure will be to contact verizon.

I've also found it useful to make sure that they only have one network message in the inbox. Rim says that if they have more then one it can prevent activation. Also depending on the carrier of the device, you could have a BIS plan when you need to get a BES plan

An enterprise activation will never work on a BIS plan, but you will have the enterprise activation option under >options>advanced options