BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 on track to return on investment

By David M Williams
Sunday, 15 February 2009 04:01

Market

It’s been four years since Research In Motion (RIM) released version 4.0 of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), powering corporate and government handhelds around the world. Now it’s time for BES 5.0, offering a raft of new features.

The BlackBerry is such a popular, even addictive, device that it has been dubbed the “crackberry” among its legions of fans – which count in their number Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States.

I’ve been a BlackBerry user myself since early 2004 and have literally pounded out over twenty five thousand messages on various QWERTY keypads in that time. The usefulness of push e-mail while on the road can’t be underestimated for any modern mobile worker.

In my “day job” I’ve administered BES platforms for Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange, even migrating from the former to the latter. The BES 4.0 release particularly brought joy to Domino admins, equalising the playing field giving features previously only available to Exchange admins.

I was one of the first BlackBerry-savvy tech journos. Years ago my pitches on BlackBerry stories were mocked by some publications (not iTWire!) who instead wrote that every new Windows Mobile device was the overused-cliché “BlackBerry killer.” I take some vindication in the fact today the former editors and contributors to those magazines are now BlackBerry users themselves. (And if you're a CIO or CFO, you really ought to read my piece on why the BlackBerry is a superior choice to Windows Mobile and iPhones for corporate use.)

To remind you where we’ve come from, BES 4.0 was noted for making policies a snap to manage and deploy and for brilliantly expanding the wireless capabilities. With BES 4.0 you not only received e-mail over-the-air – always the #1 BlackBerry feature – but your calendar, address book, tasks and memos also synced wirelessly on the field.

More than this, your whole BlackBerry configuration synchronised back to the BES – things like auto-correct settings, the order of the icons on your screen, everything – meaning it became much easier to swap from one device to another, retaining all customisations.

Wireless enterprise activation also came into being meaning for the first time ever the BlackBerry could be turned on, joined to your BES, and always keep your whole range of PIM information up to date without ever once having to be plugged into a computer.

That was a huge improvement. For Lotus users BES 4.0 also played catch up, with the Domino BES being back in version 2.0. For the first time, Domino admins could wirelessly erase a BlackBerry out in the field if it got lost or stolen.

A later significant refinement to BES 4 included HTML e-mail.

Now it’s time for BES 5.0 to shine. Here’s what it offers and when it is tipped to come out.