Here's what I want in a Hosted Exhchange / BES provider. Please add on your wish lists!

1) Low cost - no more than $10 a month - and no setup fee.

2) Outlook 2003 client support (not just OWA)

3) Ability to retrieve email from Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, and other POP3 / IMAP mail accounts.

I'd be happy if one of the companies would just provide MDS without the other BES features and charge less per month. I use my BlackBerry mostly for AOL email and the BWC does fine with that. I just need the MDS for 3rd Party software.

I would be happy with that list but would also like to have the option of being able to run an IM Client also. I was looking at the set up fees for Mail Street and I think it is a but steep for me. Just my 2 cents worth.

The cost to setup an low-end BES/Exchange Hosting provider...

Facility & Security... $600 per month.
Electricity... $200 per month.
Gas... $30 per month.
Descent Internet Connection... $300 per month.

3 Tech Support people ($10 per hour)... $7200 per month.
1 Admin ($20 per hour)... $3200 per month.

3 Servers, can be used... $1000 each.
3 Copies of Windows Server 2003... $900 each.
1 Copy of ISA Server... $800.
1 Copy of Exchange Server... $1200.
1 Copy BES, 100 User... $4000.
1 Big UPS... $1500.

So what have we got now... almost $13,000 in initial costs. a little over $11,500 in monthly costs...

Once you factor in that $7 a month goes to Microsoft for Exchange account fees... you can then figure out how much money you need to get from your customers to break even...

If you want to pay off the hardware and software in 3 years, you need to make $4200 over and above your monthly costs... this means you monthly revenue has to be about $20,000.

Being that you only have 100 BES licenses, that means you need $200 for each of those 100 licenses each month.

If you buy 500 more licenses, you might get a deal... $5000 for the licenses... You can have 600 users, you're monthly revenue now needs to be $22,000. Now you only need to collect $37 per month from each user.

These monthly fees are all sort of approximate as I just made well educated guess's at the numbers, they are all close...

I suppose the moral to this now is... BES is not cheap to setup and run, from a provider standpoint. You need a lot of hardware, and a lot of software to set something up.

cd.

bah.

That is why I suggested someone should provide the MDS connection without the hosted Exchange and other BES features. Wouldn't that eliminate the need to pay Microsoft this fee?

Not at all... in order to hook someone up to BES, to provide MDS, you have to have an Exchange/Domino/Groupwise mail account for them.

cd.

So then it sounds like the problem is with RIM, not with the hosted BES companies. Either way, I still have no way to use AIM with my Blackberry and I cannot afford to spend $65/month on data. $45/month for the blackberry plan is even stretching my budget, but I cannot afford to spend another $20.

As soon as the Nokia 9300 is released in the US, good chance I will sell my 7100g and get one of those. I can get a data plan for a Nokia smartphone for $25/month from Cingular.

No... the problem is with people who buy a business class device, and expect it to be a consumer class device with all the features of a business class device. Smart phones are cheap because there is no integration with a business network. You don't have the encryption of a blackberry, you don't have access to your intranet, you don't have security policies. All this stuff takes time and money to develop. If you want the feature of a blackberry, you have to pay. Just because *you* are not going to use the features of hosted BES, doesn't mean it's not worth it.

Maybe you are right and a blackberry isn't for you, you need someothing with more consumer perks and less business perks. Let me know how the 9300 is when you get one, looks like a real badass toy... Maybe I can get another demo line and one of them...

cd.

My problem is that I really like the Blackberry OS and user interface, as well as the form factor of the phone itself. I just wish they made a more consumer oriented version. If only Cingular would provide the TCP connection and not charge extra for the data, and perhaps even include an Instant Messenger on the phone, then all my wishes would be answered.

As Blackberry push email software starts to come out for other devices such as the Nokia 9300 or the Treo, I think they are going to have to include the TCP data or else there would be no point in getting an actual BlackBerry over those other devices.

Corey,

I must have really pissed in your cheerios. Yes, I understand how expensinve running servers and buying license's for software is being that I own a Web Hosting company. Come on now, we are always looking for the best deal out there. If money is NO issue, then I could understand BUT..... Actually, im not going to go into this. Anyway, I didn't mean to get you all fired up.

Chris... I apologize... I didn't mean to rip at you, but there is a completely clueless & useless user on here that gets me irk'd once in a while and it just happened to be before I posted in this thread.

My whole point really was that most people don't understand the technology and the money needed to deliver something that seems as simple as BES... but in reality it's quite expensive to setup and run the system. RIM has just made it look and feel simple, while in fact it's very complex and secure. Costs money.

cd.

I appreciate that it costs money, and would happily pay it. I have a wish list.

1. ease of use for people who don't run windows
a.) use of all features from firefox/mozilla
b.) email reminders from calendar

2. host can get my imap/pop mail and I can see it on OWA + BlackBerry

This stuff may be impossible, but at least I'm not asking for a $15 discount.

I don't understand what BES has to do with not running IE... Once you run enterprise activation, your desktop computer plays no role...

If you want better firefox support, find a provider who uses Lotus Domino on the backend for mail and go with them. Microsoft isn't going to go out of their way to make OWA work in other browsers. As far as I knew, application developers were responsible for making their apps work with various services, not the other way around.

AFAIK neither Notes nor Outlook let you have email reminders for calendar events, just the standard reminders.

cd.

Thanks, I'm no expert on this stuff. Might you know if OWA can do imap?

If your Exchange server has a connector for an IMAP account, you could have it setup where Exchange pulls mail from the IMAP server, but to configure it through OWA, I don't think it'll work. OK... it won't work... OWA is really just a _very basic_ front end for people to get their mail on the go. It's not really design to manage email or configure email, like Outlook is.

Find out if your OWA provider can put a hook into another IMAP server for you.

cd.

1 Dedicated Server -> $145/mo
1 Windows License w/Datacentre-> $22/mo
Tech Support people ($0.75 per completed ticket)... $$$
1 Admin ($200/mo outsourced)... $200/mo

Total initial monthly cost is just about $370 and all you need to do is buy the software that will run on the servers. As far as I know this is a one time cost so once the software is paid for it is pure profit.

According to link the server I have priced with a very good datacentre could handle up to 5x this much (CPU/Ram). I am assuming that 3-5mbit is enough bandwidth.

Just assuming these prices are correct. Total software cost is $6000

$50 per user setup fee (MyBlueberry.com) at 100 users == $5000.

Assuming 25 users cancel and 25 more signup the software is paid for with a $250 profit in setup fees.

At $10 per user per month a profit of $630 per month is doable.. At $15 per user per month you have a $1470 profit.

BES/MDS hosting is just like Webhosting. It is all about numbers.

$10 per month is completely doable as you can see. The no setup fee option is a bit harder but, for a larger service it wouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps some of us should partner with blackberryforums and offer not for profit Exchange server co-op?

This is cake - I've managed 1000+ user Exchange installtions with BES before, so a few dozen users from here would be nothing (and fast)!

Anyone interested in sharing the expenses? We could throw a server in a hosting facility and manage it remotely for peanuts.

satisfaction with owning a full featured Blackberry on a BES = Priceless
for everyone else there are Pda's, pen and paper.