Nice iPhone, shame about the e-mail (or, why the BlackBerry rules the roost)

David M Williams
Wednesday, 08 October 2008 18:10

IT Industry - Market

By now you’ll understand why I believe the BlackBerry wins hands down for both financial reasons and for matters of flexibility and functionality. Yet, it isn’t just for me to lump Windows Mobile and the iPhone together. Although they both use ActiveSync there are some differences.

Windows Mobile has it over the iPhone when it comes to searching your mail. You just can’t search on Apple’s device! You can scroll up and down using your finger and that’s pretty cool but you’re totally out of luck if you want to find an old message by sender name, or by keyword, or some other criteria.

On the other hand, the iPhone does have one major plus – like the BlackBerry it simply works. You can give a BlackBerry to an end-user and while they might have initial questions about how to work it you can be pretty confident they’re not going to fiddle with settings in any disastrous way.

This is also true for the iPhone. Give it to someone and they’ll have a couple of initial questions but will happily use it then on without any real risks it’s going to just stop working.

Windows Mobile, meanwhile, is a reboot-hungry coal-powered boat located at Cleveland.

Your Windows Mobile handheld – no matter if it is a Samsung Blackjack, a Palm Treo 750, an iMate Ultimate, whatever – is going to crash and lock up as sure as night follows day. With mobile phones being an important business tool, can you really afford to be in the situation where your phone freezes and necessitates a reboot?

It really is farcical and – perhaps like the desktop Windows operating system – the official line is that the “next version” will make it better. This was said about Windows Mobile 2003. Then Windows Mobile 5. Then Windows Mobile 6. Now we’re hoping the rumours that Windows Mobile 7 has a brand new code base will be our saviour.

There’s one more thing I should say. One additional advantage of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is that it is independent of user accounts. Your users can change passwords as frequently as they like (or as frequently as you mandate, whether they like it or not.)

ActiveSync, because it is essentially logging in to webmail, requires the owner’s username and password to be stored. Next time your company password policy kicks in and forces a password change the stored password must be updated. Some users won’t understand the error or be bothered doing anything about it. Now you’re paying for a data plan without even getting the benefits of push e-mail!

So, look, do yourself a favour. If you’re a heavy e-mail user go with a BlackBerry. There's no contest which platform handles mail best.

If you want a nice phone and to mostly read e-mail and only occasionally send it consider the iPhone but make sure you fully understand the data plan and its pricing.

Sure, you can go the Windows Mobile route – but understand you’re opening a world of hurt for your users, and for yourself (as the one they'll come to for help when it goes wrong!)