Can you still use BIS even if your work e-mail is Exchange?
 

My company is planning to switch to MS Exchange. So if they switch to exchange from POP, do we have to switch to BES or can we still continue to use BIS. I know BES is more expensive, but all the data is synchronized over the air with Exchange, right? Forgive me, I am not familiar with BES/Exchange stuff as I always used BIS.

I would appreciate a little insight on this.
Thank You.

Wirelessly posted (8820)

You can, but may depend on permission of your employer. Talk to BES admin or IT office.

You can use BIS with Exchange. However you only will get your mail over the air. All other things have to be synced via usb.
You could even use both. If only a few of your employees need BES, and others a fine with BIS, get the free Blackberry Professional server and a few CAL Licenses. For 5 Licenses this is about $400. Installation is simple and hardware requirement is less.
You can then move additional BIS users to BES at a later time when needed - or upgrade the BPS to a full BES if you need more then 30 Users.

BPS has no html email, no remote search, but regarding syncing exchange data it works the same as BES.

OK, thanks for the answer.
So, if my company switches to Exchange, in order to get full advantage of it with Blackberry, they also need to buy BES?
Blackberry can still operate as regular BIS using regular push e-mail regardless of being exchange, right? And if we want to have remote search, OTA sync, address book, etc.. we would need to purchase a BES System which would require an administrator?

I dont know if I understand this correct:
"Full advantage":
If you want all options, then yes you need a BES 5.0
But, nearly all options:
BPS 4.1 (this is also a BES, however, free for one user, you have to buy CALs for the others).
If you are fine with the email only sync, stay with BIS.

I dont think, you need a real admin. If you have someone who does the setup of exchange, he maybe is able to setup the BPS/BES.
The BES runs nearly without any regular maintenance. If you have someone in the company, who is able to setup a new email/user in exchange, he should be able to activate a new blackberry also.

If have several clients who also have a small scale BES server (<5 users). I never had a request regarding a problem if the BES. To add a new blackberry, You need the blackberry in the customers hand, and remote access to the Server. Takes 5minutes to activate the new device.

But we still have to pay for BES 5.0 server right? Having just exchange hosting doesn't mean you can use BES.

Correct

The BPS-Server is free for one User/Blackberry, CALs are about $80/User.
The BES 5.0 is about $1000 to $3000 +CALs depending where you buy it from.
Be careful when you have a exchange mailboxes hosted somewhere else and not inhouse:
It is rather unlikely if you have hosted exchange mailboxes, you are allowed to install a BPS/BES server on that machine. If you have a hosted root server on which you install the exchangeserver, then, yes.

How many Blackberry enabled mailboxes do you plan to have ?

nobody7290, Currently I think we have about 12 blackberries that are on BIS.

If you need html mail and remote search, or the new features of 5.0 (which only work with device software 5.x !) like remote file acess, public address folder access, flag emails. Then get the 5.0 Version now.
If you only need Outlook synchronisation of mail, calendar, notes, then get the BPS.

The BPS CAL licenses will be about $1000 anyway. If you trust those guys, who are selling a full bes 5.0 including CALS online for $1000, then go this way.