[rnickel]

Hey everyone, I have a few quick questions.

I'm new to the whole blackberry world, and thus far I have to say that I freaking LOVE it. I thought I sent a lot of txt's with my old cell... but now I just can't get enough of this. Anyway, I digress.

What I want to know is if I have to be subscribed to a BES service to develop a program that uses web services? Or if my current carrier (bell) will support what I want to do?

What I would also like to know, is if I can use the MDS IDE to integrate with the blackberry apps such as email, address book, calendar etc. Or if I have to write a separate J2ME app that somehow uses the xml web service world.

Thanks for your time,
Ryan Nickel

[jcomeau_ictx]

Hi Ryan, I'm not sure if you checked out Mark Rejhon's FAQ under the "Blackberry Network" topic yet; he mentions that Bell Mobility requires MDS in order to create and use TCP/IP connections. Not sure how up-to-date that is, though.

If you're just integrating with the standard Blackberry apps though, and not making your own connections with the outside world, I don't see why this would be necessary. I haven't used the MDS IDE though, so am blissfully ignorant of what's involved.

[rnickel]

I am hoping to utilize some of my web services, so I will need to interact with the outside world...

[logan]

I think I've seen posts where any ports lower than 1024 can be blocked at the RIM Relay when not going through a BES (Except for standard ports like 80 or whatever).

I think you would be OK if you're going to be on port 8080. I believe MDS is just a way to quickly develop "apps" but you should be able to use a J2ME client but you will need to buy RIM signing keys if you plan to interact with the PIM applications.
MDS apps can use your WSDL to discover what information you can provide but I don't believe they can do much with this information other than display it.