[sedated]

Hey folks.

I am thinking of having someone set up a hosted BES system tied in with Lotus Domino. I personally hate Exchange which is why I am leaning towards Domino. Now my main company isn't large (15 employees). We primarily use Macs because we really have no need for PCs and I just hate using Windows. Here are my main questions regarding the set up.

1) If we use Lotus Domino, would we be able to get full syncing on our Macs? This includes email, address book, calendar, etc. Ideally we would see changes across the board. Email gets sent to and it shows up on the Mac and on the BB. If it gets deleted from the BB it would delete on the server and therefor the Mac. Same for contacts.

2) How would the BES be set up? Would our email address have blackberry in them or would we be able to have our domain? Currently I have my main email account as a mailbox as well as a forwarder to my BB so I get full push email and I am BCC'ing myself on emails I send out on my Mac, so people don't have 2 email addresses for me, they have one.

Those are the first two big ones right now.

Any help would be seriously appreciated. In the past 3 days of having my BB I am getting seriously freakin' addicted (now I know where Crackberry comes from) and I would be sad if I can't get the syncing stuff going. As much as I love the BB, I have to work in the factor that I am a Mac user, which somewhat limits my options. I love OS X and won't switch to Windows as my OS.

Again, any insight or feedback as to what would be the best route, I would be grateful.

[BlackBerryLinks]

Hi,

1) Yes if you use the Notes client on your MAC with the Domino server + BES 4, there is full sync - wireless. This is for mail, agenda, contacts etc. Two way. And you use your company domain name for external email address.

2) Your own domain name. What you send from the BB is the same as from the MAC.

Also GroupWise could be an option for you.

Regards,
Bob

[sedated]

Thanks for the info Bob.

Have you had any experience with either the Lotus solution or Groupwise?

If so, what do you think is a better solution? I know Notes is going to have a pretty major upgrade at some but from what I have seen, the UI needs some definite work as far its current version goes.

I am trying to see if there is a demo GroupWise server that I can log into and try out. It looks pretty nice from what I have seen.

[bb4lyfe]

Unless you're going to be using Domino to it's potential I'd avoid it like the plague.

[BlackBerryLinks]

I think for now GroupWise is the best solution for you, and I am also a Lotus Domino consultant and it is a long time ago I worked with GroupWise.

Also BES Hosting could be a solution. See also this thread:
http://blackberryforums.com/showthread.php?t=25759

Regards,
Bob