[b52junebug]

Alright here is the deal. I have been tasked to figure out how many support staff it would take to support 1500 blackberry's. What do you use in your support structure? Are they dedicated handheld staff or part of another team? What team? How many types of devices do you support? Do you also support non-blackberry PDA's, smartphones? Are your locations spread out or close together?

This is to put together a support matrix, and I am not finding anything useful on the web.

SO, how many of you does it take to support 1500 people?

[JSanders]

**moved to the BES Admins Corner**

There are several here that support 1k+ users, and a couple of 10k+ user base.

[juwaack68]

Originally Posted by b52junebug

Alright here is the deal. I have been tasked to figure out how many support staff it would take to support 1500 blackberry's. What do you use in your support structure? Are they dedicated handheld staff or part of another team? What team? How many types of devices do you support? Do you also support non-blackberry PDA's, smartphones? Are your locations spread out or close together?

This is to put together a support matrix, and I am not finding anything useful on the web.

SO, how many of you does it take to support 1500 people?

We have about 800 BlackBerry devices and 4 BES servers globally, with users and locations spread all over the globe. I am now the only BES admin (lucky me).

For users in the US (the largest concentation of users) funnel support calls thru our corporate Helpdesk (they have access to add/remove users on each BES and reset passwords). They also configure/program/ship Sprint/Nextel devices to end users. I do all the non-Sprint/Nextel device support (T-Mobile, VZW, AT&T).

For other locations we have local IT support staff that does 1st level support and they either call me or the HD for additional support (they do all the procurement of the devices locally).

Our Telecom guy in Canada recently left the company, so now I'm also doing all Canadian cell phone/BB support (none of it is going thru the HD).

Today I feel a little overhwelmed....

[Frank Castle]

Well I think it depends on the scope of the number of users you will be supporting and how much of mobility you will oversee (BES, Ordering, Account Management, Device support etc)

For years I was the lone person doing this and as it's grown I've handed off parts. I currently oversee 2,300 Blackberry, 900 Windows Mobile and 100 iphones. I am part of the enterprise messaging team (exchange, spam, rightfax etc) but pretty much am dedicated to mobility. Discussion on forming a new group that is dedicated to Mobility so either way I live and breath this stuff 24x7.

Support Breakdown:

vendor management / device procurement - voice team
Help desk / level II user support - 2 guys on our team but they also support everything else
infrastructure / level III user support - me

[ladydi]

I do everything from ordering and supporting the BB to managing the BES and BES related exchange stuff. I only have about 25 users.

My husband has about 50-100 users and they have it all seperated out. telecom orders and sets up the device, hubby manages the server, and the helpdesk manages the devices.

I think it just depends on what type of environment you have. He has a big IT dept, I have a small one. It's much easier with more people, but I have to say that I am very possessive of my BES and luckily nobody ever wants to deal with it. It can get messy if you have too many cooks in the kitchen for the server. the more device support people, the better though.

[jprknight]

We have at the moment around 1000 devices, with a new exchange cluster and BES server being added in to double that figure.

We have a service desk in India of approximately 40 people (however bear in mind they field all IT related issues). As for the core team to support the infrastructure I am part of a team of 5 people who look after the day-to-day activities (We also support the whole messenging environment. We then have project managers and project staff who get involved in the new implementations.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I am open to questions.

[wunderbar]

we have 40 devices, we have our telecom person actually manage things like phone contracts and procurement, but I manage everything else.

[crisambo]

I have around 3000 mobile telecom devices in over 50 locations across the US under my care with about 10pct BB. I handle all data related matters and have 2 people helping out with hardware management... those 2 people have other procurement functions as well outside of telecom. . . I'm also backed by my Carriers Reps for troubleshooting certain hardware problems.

[SteveO86]

I manage/support the BES, BlackBerries, and the email client (Lotus Notes 8, not the Domino serevr...yet) (On top of all the servers/Net devices/etc). Granted our first batch of BlackBerries was only about 12 the next batch will be here shortly. I just don't do the ordering, which I need to get more involved in since half the BlackBerries did not get ordered with a BES plan....