GoodLink?
 

I'm not a fan of GoodLink (I might not even have the name right) but I just got called into a meeting with a bunch of my bosses in about an hour. They are all freaking out over the "blackout" which they think is going to happen any day now. So I have an hour to prepare some technical arguements about why we do NOT want Goodlink in here. (The person who was supposed to represent my team is out on a family emergency and I can't reach her) Could you kind folks throw me some suggestions? I don't think I can find everything I need fast enough!

First you should know how many devices you have. Here's what I did for contingency planning (we have 220 devices in the US).

- If we replace them with Treo's the hardware cost would be approx $53K
- If we then go with GoodLink, it would be an additional $23K for server license and CALs

We looked at another backend solution (still using Treo's) and that solution jumped to over $100K. When our VP saw the total cost for replacement, she took my advice of 'wait and see' and implement the work around.

IF it even comes to that.

Great suggestion. I had no idea the server and client licensing was so expensive. With our user base and the cost of a decent set of hardware, that is going to be well over $200k. Much appreciated!

And it is not that I am unwilling to change--- I just think a knee-jerk reaction implemented on the fly is the worst possible way to roll out new technology.

Actually, those numbers are a bit skewed. I can speak regarding Sprint:

Treo 650: $99 with two year commitment
GoodLink Server: $1500
GoodLink Licenses: $74
Unlimited Data Plan with GoodLink: $40/month

Bear in mind, that is base pricing. With 220 units, your monthly would be lower and they would probably lower the licenses as well.

Of course you could implement the workaround from RIM essentially for free. :)

and they want a quick stop.. who wants to be stuck with treo's for 2 years if the bb's get turned back on a week later..lol

Contingency plan

Well, if RIM's patent infringement lawsuit troubles make them nervous, then perhaps they should be equally nervous about Goodlink's patent infringement troubles.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/0...isto_sues_good/

Key differences there:

Visto has filed a suit, nowhere near the status of NTP v. RIMM. We have not been through the court process, appeals process, etc. The suit was just filed.

Visto has a history of litigation, none of it successful, including the announcement of a lawsuit against Microsoft the day after they signed a license agreement with NTP

We’ve preliminarily reviewed the patents in question, and they appear to describe a system that is unrelated to how GoodLink works. With that in mind, we will encourage Visto to resolve this quickly.

Lastly, and IMO, most importantly, Good has a history of settling litigation as opposed to using resources that could better be used elsewhere.

Your point? To my company this means RIM has taken all possible scenarios in to consideration and no matter what happens they have a viable path for us to follow.

That is fantastic. Zero cost, zero worries. If it happens (which is a big if), then probably it will be a weeks worth of testing and then having our users in the USA update their devices (which they are used to doing or in some cases used to making someone do it for them) which will take a few minutes.

One of our idiot VP's demanded we have a 3 hour meeting to discuss our options. It lasted 10 minutes - the moment the relevant IT Director said "no cost, normal upgrde process" the meeting was stopped.

Bunker

Good_Guy said:
"Visto has filed a suit, nowhere near the status of NTP v. RIMM. We have not been through the court process, appeals process, etc. The suit was just filed."
True, but I would think that most companies would not want to go from one company tied up in a lawsuit to another company facing a similar lawsuit, no matter how far into the litigation process either company is. The prudent thing to do, if one must make a change, is to find a company not embroiled in any kind of legal wrangling with regard to its product. That's just common sense.

Good_Guy said:
"Visto has a history of litigation, none of it successful, including the announcement of a lawsuit against Microsoft the day after they signed a license agreement with NTP."
With all due respect, this is not particularly germane to the topic. Visto's "history of litigation", such as it is, has nothing to do with whether Goodlink is or is not in violation of patent rights. Even the boy who cried wolf could count on being right at least a percentage of the time. ;-)

Good_Guy said:
"We’ve preliminarily reviewed the patents in question, and they appear to describe a system that is unrelated to how GoodLink works. With that in mind, we will encourage Visto to resolve this quickly."
So said RIM. Except, they felt strongly enough about their position that, rightly or wrongly, they chose to fight - hard. Now, one can say that they should have just quickly settled, but there are pros, cons, and implications to choosing that path. Implying that an entity involved in litigation is always better for having "settled" the case seems, somehow, disingenuous.

Good_Guy said:
Lastly, and IMO, most importantly, Good has a history of settling litigation as opposed to using resources that could better be used elsewhere.
Well, I suppose an interested party could take that two ways. One is, :Bravo! These folks didn't waste time and resources fighting to uphold their position."
The other way is, "Why the heck do they have a history of settling litigation? There's something wrong with that picture...."

Look my friend, I don't want to argue. As a business owner myself, I simply made an observation that, I hope, gave the original poster some insight into his/her work situation. I wish both of you the best of luck.

Please folks, lets all just take a deep breath here...

There is a PLAN and it's a patch... Tested, viable, and backed by RIM %110. It's MUCH less expensive and MUCH less time consuming than switching your RIM based services to something else.

Just sit down with your team of head honchos (which, by the way, is panicking WAY too late) and explain the patch and the workaround guarantee RIM has discussed on their website.

Good isn't Bad, but switching too Good now would be.

{shaking head...} why does management ONLY wake up when the crisis is almost over and if they had taken their heads out of their asses three months ago, everyone would be on the same page today? {sigh}

Why? May be because they see an honest advertisement like this: http://www.good.com/trygood/ and realize that blackberry is doomed.

I quote: "Compare that to a cradle-uploaded workaround patch that could take months to completely deploy and you'll quickly realize just how easy it is to run GoodLink."

That's a cute advertisement. All they did was take advantage of RIM's litigation situation, which I guess I can't blame them for. However, what goes around, comes around.

Good has more to fear from Microsoft than it does from RIM. RIM will be around for a long time to come but I don't know if I woud say the same for Good.

As an admin who supprts Exchange as a primary job function and BES as a secondary, if my bosses came to me Monday and told me to ditch RIM, no questions asked and it was final... First I would say "but..." and then realize the boss was gone, then I would put together a recomendation for using the BUILT-IN functionality of the windows Mobile client used with the new Exchange 2003 sp2 features.

I don't dislike Goodlink just because, I dislike Goodlink because I USED it. There is a difference between me and some other BES admins out there. I know the products and I have used them prior to bragging on RIM. I am not one to put down another technology without having tried it first... that's just immature. Side-by-side in my useage testing (and other admins and end-users in our company) we determined that RIM functioned better, was more or less seemless, and all around simple to use and administer.

I could go on about the reasons I prefer RIM over Goodlink but I did that in another post "BES vs Goodlink" which got a lot of feedback. It's a good exchange for those who did not read it.

www.blackberryforums.com/showthread.php?t=21975

One year ago, the USPTO upheld 15 of 25 claims in one of the patents cited in the filing against Seven Networks. To say that Visto has a 'history of litigation, none of it successful' is ridiculous, considering they have successfully settled after filing against Seven/Smartner. The reason they filed against Microsoft is because their entire team of wireless push email developers are former Smartner developers - coincidence?

Good will settle with Visto. Microsoft will settle with Visto. RIM will eventually settle with Visto once the case is filed. Lots of settlements. If someone wants to take the patent back to the re-examination process, then thats fine ... however, it won't be RIM (shareholders) nor Good (money). Microsoft will perhaps be their best bet, but considering they pretty much stole someone else's technology in the first place...

Did your bosses buy it?

It's very funny, actually. The Good devices don't open Word Perfect attachments, and the rep didn't know if there was an add-on that would do it. So that basically killed the meeting in about the first 12 minutes since about 50% of our Blackberry users are attorneys and we will take Word Perfect away from them only by prying it from their cold, dead fingers!

I can only assume that's because Goodlink focused on the Microsoft suite of office products when designing their software and nothing else? Wow... I think that underscores the short sightedness of the Good product, if nothing else.

Very interesting. Thanks for the update dcpatti.