[joeburns]

Hi!

May I appologise in advance if this is posted in the wrong area, but after a scout around I was not sure exactly where to post!

I am a new member of the forum but intend to be a regular poster and contibuter as time goes on. I have just started at a company that has offices in the US, UK and Holland. There is an exchange server running in the US but this is not accessed by the other offices. There are members of the company running Blackberrys from the Exchange server in the US.

1. In the UK, we have a Unixware Server and are using SMTP for email which I am wondering if it could cope with any blackberry software?

2. Would HPOX 11 be any better for the function?

3. Will Blackberry duplicate mailboxes on the device and on office PCs or will it know which ones have been dealt with?

Another solution may be to duplicate mail over to America to get the Blackberry devices running from there, but if we could run it in the UK without this problem, that would be the best option for me.

I have trawled the net for past applications of Blackberry with Unixware, but alas, to no avail! If anyone could help, that would be magic.

Thanks in anticipation,

Joe

[JSanders]

Joe--first, welcome to the Forums. Enjoy your time here.

I am going to move your post over to the BES section, in hopes it will get some specific look-sees by people knowledgeable in your issues.

[x14]

BES only supports MS Exchange, Lotus Domino, and Novell Groupwise.

[Ugg]

It's worth taking a step back, I think...

There are basically 2 sorts of Blackberry solutions out there. There's "BES" ("Enterprise") and "BIS" ("Internet").

"BES" works with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or Novell Groupwise by having a server on your network next to the mail server. As soon as your mailbox on the server receives a mail, it is sent to your Blackberry too. Read/unread marks are kept in sync, and calendar, contacts, memos and tasks are too (all updated over the air).

The "BIS" alternative is where you don't have a server on your network, but a server at RIM connects to your mail server via a protocol such as IMAP (which may be how your PC clients connect now).

The disadvantage with BIS is that mail delivery isn't instantaneous (mails will appear a few minutes after they hit your server, when RIM polls it) and you don't get the same level of synchronisation for e.g. contacts.

BES is what your colleagues in the US are using, I suspect. If you want BES users in the UK you'll either need a compatible mail server here or have the mailboxes hosted in the US. Doing the latter may cause problems with desktop access - I suspect any link that you could set up to the US will be relatively high latency.

One question about existing desktop access - is mail retrieved from the Unixware server via POP3 and stored on client PCs or is it left on the server? All three BES mail options rely on server-stored mail, which could be a major change to the way that you do it now.

RIM are keen to persuade small businesses to go with BES rather than BIS, and a free 1-user server download called "BES Express" is available (Google it for info). That might be a good way of trying out the software before committing, but you will need a mail server for it to talk to.

[Joe Burns]

Originally Posted by Ugg

It's worth taking a step back, I think...

There are basically 2 sorts of Blackberry solutions out there. There's "BES" ("Enterprise") and "BIS" ("Internet").

"BES" works with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or Novell Groupwise by having a server on your network next to the mail server. As soon as your mailbox on the server receives a mail, it is sent to your Blackberry too. Read/unread marks are kept in sync, and calendar, contacts, memos and tasks are too (all updated over the air).

The "BIS" alternative is where you don't have a server on your network, but a server at RIM connects to your mail server via a protocol such as IMAP (which may be how your PC clients connect now).

The disadvantage with BIS is that mail delivery isn't instantaneous (mails will appear a few minutes after they hit your server, when RIM polls it) and you don't get the same level of synchronisation for e.g. contacts.

BES is what your colleagues in the US are using, I suspect. If you want BES users in the UK you'll either need a compatible mail server here or have the mailboxes hosted in the US. Doing the latter may cause problems with desktop access - I suspect any link that you could set up to the US will be relatively high latency.

One question about existing desktop access - is mail retrieved from the Unixware server via POP3 and stored on client PCs or is it left on the server? All three BES mail options rely on server-stored mail, which could be a major change to the way that you do it now.

RIM are keen to persuade small businesses to go with BES rather than BIS, and a free 1-user server download called "BES Express" is available (Google it for info). That might be a good way of trying out the software before committing, but you will need a mail server for it to talk to.

Ugg, thank you so much for the really informative post. It really has helped see the whole thing much clearer. In response to your question, mail is not stored on the Unixware server, it is just retrieved via pop/smtp.

We are discussing the merits of an Exchange server for a business our size. i have worked with them before and know they have great function, but for a business with user numbers of our size, it could be an expense that is not needed for the issues we have.

I think the solution will be to opt for the BIS version for now, with a view to update at a later stage should the user group grow or an exchange sever is bought for other business reasons.

The problem is, will we just end up with duplicate inboxes on bbs and pcs? I would expect IMAP would sync these, but will I need to set that up from here or would the RIM server sort that for us?

[bertiebassett]

Originally Posted by Joe Burns

The problem is, will we just end up with duplicate inboxes on bbs and pcs? I would expect IMAP would sync these, but will I need to set that up from here or would the RIM server sort that for us?

Nope you'll get in a right mess with duplicate inboxes..BIS is just a copy of your email and doesn't provide reconcilliation of items. Nor does it allow sync of sent item - any email sent from the BB device is 'lost' unless you BCC yourself or another account back in. Plus you don't get lookup or calendar sync or much much more..

Personally my view is that BIS is fine for "2/3 guys in a room business" but once you get past that scale then go BES. If you've got an Exchange server in the US, and that works well for you, then get them to drop in a BES server next to it. No issues at all with having a UK device on a UK network & paying UK rates running on a BES in the US

Getting a BES running in the states for 5 users could cost around $250 for CALs - you can drop it onto XP at a push (for small number of users) and it'll run on more or less anyold piece of tin sitting under a desk - but stick a 1gb of RAM.

[Joe Burns]

Originally Posted by bertiebassett

No issues at all with having a UK device on a UK network & paying UK rates running on a BES in the US

But will there be an issue with the fact that we dont have the same domain email addresses? At the minute the american office uses '@businessname.com' as the UK office uses '@businessname.co.uk' addresses. The mailboxes are managed from two different places, so will we need to migrate the mailboxes over to there to get the functionality?

[rliebsch]

It should be able to handle all of them. And if you already have an exchange server you may be able to have that exchange server handle mail for all domains, and your clients/users should be able to connect to it with low to moderate latency.

Blackberry would be real time, Outlook web access would be useful as well. You might consider flexing the IT dollars already spent.