Since I last ranted about Blackberry versus Good, there has been an update. Siemens launched a new phone, SK 65 which has Blackberry built in. While cross-shaped SK65 might not win any design points, it does prove my point that surely and slowly Blackberry is going to become a wireless e-mail standard. In addition, RIM announced a new plan, BlackBerry Built-In, that will let phone/PDA makers include BlackBerry software – including BlackBerry Email, BlackBerry Calendar and BlackBerry Browser applications — into their own devices, in addition to BlackBerry wireless services. Brian commented on the earlier post, “From a usabilty perspective, I think the Mac PC comparison holds true. Blackberry is simple and intuitive; Goodlink on Treo is akward and boated.” Damian points out, “I’ve tried both the Treo/Goodlink and Blackberry – and for email, Blackberry wins…..simply a better keyboard.” Now if Good was that great, why would Cingular announce a new wireless enterprise service using Seven’s software. Mind you Cingular has been the preferred network partner for Good.
I think the trick for additional email backend providers is getting installed behind the firewall… RIM is pretty much the standard and anything is either experimentally supported or not at all – at least in my corporate experience.
I am currently working with a company and they only support RIM with their Exchange server. I am fortunate though that my carrier (T-Mobile) offers a way to get messages through a POP interface via mobile… Ideally I’d be reading and writing – even synced – with the server directly!
The Seven solution looks interesting as well – though I am not on Cingular, and don’t have the authority to install a server somewhere behind a company firewall to try it. It’s not clear if you have to check messages or whether they just arrive ala RIM on non RIM or Good devices like Treos.