BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express synchs with Microsoft Exchange or Windows Small Business Server
RIM will soon be releasing a free version of its one of its most prized possessions, the server that synchs the BlackBerry with Microsoft Exchange. The news gets even better: BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express can support up to 2,000 users per server. It is expected to be available in March.
Of course, the free version doesn’t include all of the bells and whistles of the full version. But it will offer a pretty good subset of features, RIM says, including about 35 IT controls and policies such as the ability to remotely wipe a smartphone and enforce and reset passwords. Server Express can run on the same physical server as Exchange, or it can be loaded into a virtual server. It has been certified for use with VMware ESX (what, no Hyper-V?).
Server Express will support Microsoft Exchange 2010, 2007 and 2003 and allow users to synch email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks. Users can manage email folders, search email on the mail server, set an out-of-office reply, edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and access files stored on the enterprise network. RIM says that Server Express will let users tap into other business applications behind the firewall as well.
The free server can also be used with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 and 2003. SBS is an all-in-one server suite that includes an e-mail server, app server and Web server, but is limited to 75 users.
Updated 02/23: The folks at RIM have pointed out to me that it is actually possible to support an unlimited number of users, if your users are not limited by SBS’s license. Not only can each BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express support up to 2,000 users per server, but you are free to install any number of servers, the company says.
RIM isn’t completely giving away the store. Its flagship BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5 will offer more fine-grained security policies, monitoring and promise higher availability. Users will need the full-blown version to use their BlackBerries as their corporate extensions via Cisco’s UCM, Microsoft’s Office Communications Server or IBM Lotus products like Sametime.
This is a smart move by RIM. But will it be enough to help turn the tide away from the iPhone and other options?
Given that RIM’s claim to fame has been its ability to support Microsoft e-mail and Office apps, will Microsoft be able to out-compete RIM with the new Windows Mobile 7? Most reviewers are excited about Microsoft’s new OS, though nearly everyone has learned to take a wait-and-see attitude with Microsoft.
And these days, RIM has a lot more to worry about, even than the iconic iPhone. Unless Apple decides to unlock the iPhone from AT&T, Android will continue to have an ever-growing chance.
The number of handset makers releasing new Android phones was the cause for major buzz at the Mobile World Congress 2010 being held this week in Barcelona, Juniper Research notes. Announcements of new Android handsets were made by Alcatel, Dell, HTC, LG Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ZTE, all demonstrating new Android-powered handsets.
While there’s been a lot of debate as to just how open Android is, it is generally considered to be the biggest contender in the open source mobile OS camp. Android competes on “free” applications. It has forced the hand of Nokia which turned Symbian into a fully open source mobile OS earlier in the month, ahead of schedule. Nokia is now plowing ahead. This week, it announced with Intel the launch of its Linux-based platform MeeGo.
Microsoft is trying to counter the attack by producing a mobile OS that people will actually want to use. The new Windows Mobile 7 operating system demonstrated by Microsoft this week, to much fanfare.
Making your software open source isn’t the only counter move. Making a teaser version of your software available for free has been a tried-and-true tactic refined by proprietary software vendors (namely Microsoft) for decades.
To the proprietary vendors credit (Apple, Microsoft and RIM), they already have tens of thousands of applications available. Better still, their ISVs make money on their applications, causing them to want to write and support them. Meanwhile the Android app market is still working out how to get people to pay for software when open source has become synonymous with free.
But if RIM can keep the loyalty of the IT professional by offering a well-built server synch product at a fair price, it has a fighting chance.
Like this post? Check out these others.
- Meego: And Then There Were Three
- Smartphones, the Next Great Open Source Battleground
- Symbian Completes The Largest Move To Open Source In History
- Microsoft fixes 26 security holes, warns on unpatched multi-vendor SSL vulnerability
- Startup Huddle wins Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 contest
- Microsoft gags ex-CFO Chris Liddel and pays him $1.9M
- 7 big IT orgs that showed Microsoft the door
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