Technical Tips

Mobile devices have become ubiquitous with business people trying to stay connected with their email, contacts, and calendars. If you are running Microsoft Exchange Server at your office, you really have two good options for mobile communications:

A. Devices that use Microsoft ActiveSync
B. Blackberry Devices

Devices in group A include the Apple iPhone, and any device that runs Windows Mobile. These devices now include Microsoft ActiveSync which provides wireless synchronization of Email, Calendar, Contacts, and tasks to/from Microsoft Exchange Server mailboxes. These devices work quite well, and generally allow attachments to be opened and viewed on the mobile device. Their weaknesses become more apparent in larger installations, especially when they are given to employees, as opposed to business owners. In the event an employee leaves, there is no way to remove all of the “company information” from their mobile device, short of confiscating it. Also, these devices tend to have lower battery life. However, they are inexpensive to deploy.

Blackberry devices were really the first serious corporate mobile devices to allow mobile workers the ability to handle lots of communication. They are technically mature products, and RIM (the manufacturer of Blackberry) has control over both the hardware and operating system on the device. Blackberries operate more like industrial devices in terms of reliability. However, outside of their primary functions, blackberries generally have less functionality in terms of web browsing, attachment manipulation, ring-tones, etc. Also, to really get the advantages of a Blackberry, you need to be running Blackberry Enterprise Server, a server application that resides on one of your corporate servers that creates the integration between the Blackberry and the Microsoft Exchange Server. BES Server (as it is referred to in the industry) used to cost lots of money, but RIM now has an express version that will support up to 15 blackberries. You get 1 license free with your first blackberry, but must pay $99.00 for each blackberry you want to add to the server. Once a blackberry has been added to a BES server, it can be activated wirelessly, disabled wirelessly, and erased wirelessly. It becomes a corporate asset that can be easily controlled and managed from a central server.