I didn't quite follow Tom's column - he praises Blackberry's peerless email capability, and concludes begging mobile phone manufacturers to replace his BB? If the current and evolving rotation of Treos, Nokia e-series, and Windows mobile devices aren't doing it -- isn't it a far shorter path to have RIM innovate on the application software side?

PDA/Phone to Corporate e-mail connectivity has always been the Holy Grail to me ... and the point that most phone manufacturer's seem to miss out on. If I buy a phone and have to deal with getting my corporate IT department to connect it, then frankly, it's just not going to happen. BlackBerry got there by having a friendly backend that integrates seamlessly and pretty easily with the phones, that they of course provide (via carriers).

Microsoft hasn't quite got this trick down pat -- I can't just get a Microsoft SmartPhone and have it work with my corporate e-mail system, that's just starting to appear and for whatever reason (I would guess security / passwords being displayed) POP and IMAP have never been popular with e-mail administrators in big companies so phones that only offer this type of connectivity aren't really "friendly" enough to get traction in this space.

Business has money, money is what rules -- why aren't the cell phone makers going after this market the way BlackBerry did?

Being on the architecture side of IT I deal with Microsoft on a regular basis -- getting a simple architecture/description of how to support multiple PDA/Phones with Exchange is a pretty near impossible task -- they've integrated it to a level in Exchange where I have to understand Exchange completely just to enable this "functionality".

RIM did it right, a simple drop in server-side component that's stand-alone, simple and easy to use....

RIM got it right by building a more-or-less bullet-proof infrastructure and building up it's platform on top of that. It's very solid, performs well... but doesn't necessary /integrate/ well with anyting other than what they've built their Enterprise Server (BES) to talk to. If you have to integrate with anything else, then you're stuck with web-based retrieval.

The problem with mobile devices and email is that there are such a variety of email and networking standards (ports, corporate firewalls, cellular provider firewalls, etc). Rather than rely upon a centralized infrastructure, they instead operate simply as email clients -- just like Outlook on your PC. So they are more susceptible to connection problems, networking challenges, etc.

Honestly, I think that comparing Blackberry to these other email clients is like comparing busses and airplanes. They may accomplish the same basic task but they are accomplishing it via very different means. And the expectations and requirements of these different mechanisms exist to support very different goals.

The article very correctly points out that RIM has a first class infrastructure. But if my needs go beyond doing just what this infrastructure will let me, then I need something different. Mind you, having the BB Connect client available more widely now allows us to potentially benefit from RIM without being hog-tied. Unfortunately, BB Connect seems to get lobotomized of some features and I'm not entirely sure it's as bullet-proof in software form as it is with the likes of a BB950 (one of my favorite BB devices).

If you want to compare RIM with something and have it be meaningful I'd target Goodlink. Comparing it with basic email clients doesn't seem like a fair one.

Love it or hate it, the Treo 700w, and other phones with similar functionality, do the wireless active sync to our Exchange2003 servers very, very well. Our users love the feature but they each have a preference as to what kind of phone/PDA we give them.

To gain any traction with our enterprise we need connectivity to Exchange2003 like we have it with the MS phones and had it with the Blackberry Enterprise Server. Without this connectivity we won't touch it.

On a personal level I can't wait to see the iPhone, but I really wasn't interested in yet another email address (yahoo.com) that I have to use to get my always connected to email functionality.

Who knows, maybe Apple will surprise me and they will have Exchange connectivity worked out by the June release, but I doubt it. Safari access to Outlook Web Access doesn't count. I need to sync. Maybe iPhone 2.0.

I'm also hearing we will not be able to use iTunes purchased music as ring tones. We'll all survive, but I bet that'll be a deal breaker for some.

Good article Tom.

I see nothing that the blackberry can do that the iPhone cannot. And after seeing the iPhone, its design and compatibility with my Macs is great... Oh And my Windows stuff as well... But anyway, I've been looking at the blackberry, and it looks like MSDOS up against the iPhone.

@ Rick B.

Access to the pager network, along with a rock solid NOC. That's the two massive things blackberry has over the iphone