[Mark Rejhon]

[WorldIRC]

How can these guys maintain this price? Do the math - licensing fees for BES, MS Exchange, User CALS, Access CALS to run a legitimate and legal business really adds up. And now they spent money to upgrade to BES 4?

[peterjun]

Lemme get this straight?

Does myblueberry offer BES 4/MDS for $10/month? That's push email, with calendar/notes/tasks/address OTA synchronization? Am I wrong?

Wow.. good deal!

[ScOObydoo]

Originally Posted by WorldIRC

How can these guys maintain this price? Do the math - licensing fees for BES, MS Exchange, User CALS, Access CALS to run a legitimate and legal business really adds up. And now they spent money to upgrade to BES 4?

Probably a question of quantity and trying to maintain a long term relationship with their customers.

[bperkins]

I had a bad experience with there customer service.

[CaptNblackberry]

Originally Posted by ScOObydoo

Probably a question of quantity and trying to maintain a long term relationship with their customers.

I don't think there is any way that this can be licen$ed software. But correct me if I am mistaken. I did some checking after I read the above post. From what I can find, the cost for MS Excahnge license is about $1500 or more. It costs between $60-100 for each exchange user license to use the server and exchange/outlook. The BES license is $5000 according to RIM site rim.com. Each user license is $60 according to RIM a 100 user CAL is $5999.

Also, the above figures do not take into consideration the cost of the computers, the connection to the internet which has to be several hundred dollars per month, etc. etc.

World Irc makes a lot of sense. Do the math - a company cant operate in the red and survive. According to the above they can't make a penny in profit until approximately TWO years of payments from a subscriber. WIth the rapid change of technology, I don't think ANY company can wait to make a profit because with software changing so rapidly and hardware changing so rapidly, you couldn't count on your software/hardware investment being static for that period of time to even start to make any profit.

Personally, I would like to hear from the website to ease my mind. If I can get BES/MDS for $10/mo I would be happy to save money. Then it comes down to service and support.

I am just worried that my business data might be at risk in the event of a shutdown.

Does anyone have information about licensing that is better than my quick google search provided? I am more than happy to be educated. Thanks.

[trout16]

love the av Cap'n! 8)

[CaptNblackberry]

Originally Posted by trout16

love the av Cap'n! 8)

Thanks - I do too. But I am thinking of changing the font to make it easier to read my moniker :D

[ScOObydoo]

The prices you quote are of course for RETAIL.

I can go to Ebay right now and get myself a BES and some licenses:

http://search.ebay.com/blackberry-en...omZR40QQsojsZ1

Then I can buy a 25 CAL Exchange server for anywhere between $500 and $1000 off the same source, or any of the other used software vendors.

They are an ISP so the connection to the net isn't an issue, plus Blackberry traffic is probably just a fraction of their web traffic.

I am in no way confirming they are legal or not, only they know the truth, I am just saying that it's perfectly possible to setup a 100 user BES for around $7000. With $10 revenue per user per month they will have their investment back in just over 7 months.

Plus, with my limited BES knowledge I thought there was some pretty advanced copy and licensing protection in the package....

[CaptNblackberry]

I was just commenting on the fact that a business cannot wait that long to turn a profit - especially in a market that changes as rapidly as the software market (new programs - new licenses) and the need for faster and faster machines to keep up with the advances in BB rollouts of new capabilities.

In a never ending - gotta keep up - when and where is the profit? So if they are 7 months behind in turning a buck, won't they always be 7 months behind as products change. BB OS 4.1 will probably be out within the year. Then another upgrade.

Just my observation. If I am incorrect, I am willing to corrected.

[ScOObydoo]

Originally Posted by CaptNblackberry

I was just commenting on the fact that a business cannot wait that long to turn a profit - especially in a market that changes as rapidly as the software market (new programs - new licenses) and the need for faster and faster machines to keep up with the advances in BB rollouts of new capabilities.

In a never ending - gotta keep up - when and where is the profit? So if they are 7 months behind in turning a buck, won't they always be 7 months behind as products change. BB OS 4.1 will probably be out within the year. Then another upgrade.

Just my observation. If I am incorrect, I am willing to corrected.

A large corportation, yes. But this is pretty much a one man show. And for a one man show it's not too much to wait half a year for a profit, heck many companies wait longer than that and never make a dime.

It's not like they are much much lower than others like bes4u, the difference between $10 and $20 isn't that substantial.

[Mark Rejhon]

It's possible that MyBlueberry is getting used licenses from elsewhere, or recycling existing licenses from another business that doesn't need them as much (i.e. Microsoft Solution Provider). They got some of their licenses off eBay as far as I remember, I remember reading a post. They are pretty cutthroat.

I agree with the numbers. It's hard for MyBlueberry to make a profit -- considering they are aiming for the MDS market rather than the Exchange email market. Now that MDS-like functionality is possible on many networks without TCP/IP (aka "Public MDS")

If I was starting over again, I'd probably have signed up for BES4U.com ... Although I signed up on Mailstreet way back in April, and so far I go by "Don't Fix It If It Ain't Broke" (DFIIIAB). I considered cancelling when Rogers deployed Public MDS, but I like the extra speed and reliability, and now I like the wireless synchronization which was so easy to enable!

It will be interesting to see how long MyBlueberry stays in business, but there are students and other people who can only afford to pay $10 extra per month, and willing to take the risk. Even I don't use the Exchange email address of my Mailstreet often -- I mainly use Mailstreet for MDS and for wireless PIM synchronization. My email is still done in Mozilla Thunderbird with another email server, and forwarded to my BlackBerry email address. (That means I lose out on wireless email synchronization for now, but I really don't want to make Microsoft Outlook my primary email client -- Outlook is just a PIM client to me.) That makes me a perfect target audience for MyBlueberry, although I might worry about loss of PIM data, although I can back that up to my desktop computer using the Outlook offline-online synchronization feature. Still, I don't want to DFIIIAB just to save $13 per month, especially if I accidentally lose email for a few days through a botched transfer!

[CaptNblackberry]

Originally Posted by ScOObydoo

A large corportation, yes. But this is pretty much a one man show. And for a one man show it's not too much to wait half a year for a profit, heck many companies wait longer than that and never make a dime.

It's not like they are much much lower than others like bes4u, the difference between $10 and $20 isn't that substantial.

The main difference is MobileWeb4U's setup price, which I understand covers some of the upfront licensing costs and the monthly fee is higher to also defray licensing costs. It costs tons of money to buy licenses, whether they are 'used' or purchased on Ebay. And you still have to pay for licenses otherwise you just might get a visit from the MS Police.

I also understand that it is illegal to recycle volume licensing from MS.

[peterjun]

Although I can't comment on the whole licensing and costs issues of running a BES/MDS operation, my experiences with myblueberry.us has been VERY POSITIVE.

I signed up last night and the next morning my account was setup. I was able to activate over the air (enterprise activation). Also, when I botched a couple of settings a quick email (actually a few) to support yielded a courteous response in a few minutes. I will need to explore more of the features!

I would definitely recommend them!

[bigtar]

Sorry for my Ignorance, but what are the major advantages of using BES as opposed to BWC? I don't see how I need ota sync, as I sync up at home every night with the cable. The only think BWC does not do that I wish it would is delete messages off the server when I delete them from my BlackBerry.

[WorldIRC]

BES LEts you wirelessly sync your email and PIM with Outlook. You generally get much more storage. Quicker internet on your phone and access to MDS applications if your network doesnt support MDS.

[ScOObydoo]

Just noticed that "bes4u" actually tries to make people think that myblueberry might be an illegal operation:

http://www.mobileweb4u.com/bes.html

Competitor 2 monthly charge includes –

BES/MDS (350 MG) Charge per month $10.00
BES/MDS Setup Charge 0.00
Monthly BES/MDS monthly charge $10.00

Question:
How can competitor 2 maintain this price? Do the math - licensing fees for BES, MS Exchange, User CALS, Access CALS to run a legitimate and legal business really adds up.
Remember what Mom taught us:
1) If something is to good to be true, it probably isn’t
2) You get what you pay for; and,
3) There’s no such thing as a “free lunch”.

Pretty cheesy tactic if you ask me, and certainly not the kind of company I'd ever do business with. Compete on service and features, not by smearing your competition.

[peterjun]

2) You get what you pay for; and,
3) There’s no such thing as a “free lunch”.

To answer q2.
I pay $10 for 1) BES 4.0, 2) MDS, 3) Exchange account 4) 350 megs of storage, 5) Great, fast technical support.

To answer q3.
I pay $10/month. It isn't free.

Like I said, I don't know licensing costs, etc. but as an end consumer, I enjoy the service they provide and the cost. Their technical support responses are rapid! They also offer other services like webhosting, etc. which may account for other streams of revenue.

[Mark Rejhon]

ScOOby:

In fairness to everyone, I remember the day when MyBlackBerry spammed the forums :D
Did you know MyBlackBerry is a banned word on HowardForums? When you try to post http://www.myblackberry.us on HowardForums, it becomes http://www.howardforums.com

My trio of recommendations are usually Mailstreet, BES4U and MyBlueBerry. Mailstreet for small corporate customers who need a domain name for their emails, BES4U for power users, and MyBlueBerry for budget users who mainly need the MDS feature (still more reliable than carrier BWC!)

[ScOObydoo]

Originally Posted by Mark Rejhon

ScOOby:

In fairness to everyone, I remember the day when MyBlackBerry spammed the forums :D
Did you know MyBlackBerry is a banned word on HowardForums? When you try to post http://www.myblackberry.us on HowardForums, it becomes http://www.howardforums.com

My trio of recommendations are usually Mailstreet, BES4U and MyBlueBerry. Mailstreet for small corporate customers who need a domain name for their emails, BES4U for power users, and MyBlueBerry for budget users who mainly need the MDS feature (still more reliable than carrier BWC!)

I was a myblueberry customer until I moved over to the 7100, and now I am considering signing up again with them, I never noticed any problems with their Exchange connectivity and don't see why they are considered "budget" except for their low price. Granted, the website changes as often as the weather and it looks a little unprofessional, but I never noticed any downtime and the customer service Jamie provides is excellent.

As for the spamming on HoFo, I see the same from bes4u, a board as large as that is always going to be a great way to get your hands on customers, and with the $10 a month fee I can't see them having a major ad budget to waste...