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RIM Offers BlackBerry Service Without the BlackBerry

Posted by Zonk on Tue Apr 24, 2007 09:05 AM
from the spreading-the-crack-around dept.
Communications Handhelds IT Hardware
TheCybernator writes "RIM has announced that they're essentially planning to offer BlackBerry service ... without the BlackBerry. The company plans an app suite that will turn its push e-mail technology into a platform for Windows Mobile 6 devices. Less than a week after a network outage crippled BlackBerry users across North America, Research In Motion announced an application pack for Windows Mobile 6 devices that Canadian software developers said will intensify the competition for push e-mail. The firm has said that the BlackBerry Application suite will appear as an icon on the screen of the Mobile Windows device and load BlackBerry applications such as e-mail, phone, calendar, address book, tasks, memos, browser, and instant messaging. RIM said users will easily be able toggle between the two platforms, one of which would have a BlackBerry-style interface."
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  • I mean, I'm not a crackberry head, so I haven't looked that hard, but I'm sure my rep told me it was coming "real soon now" for the Treo when I bought my 650 a couple of years ago.

    Did it not materialize?

  • Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:08AM (#18854571) Homepage Journal
    I suspect RIM is falling into the trap of believing that they can reduce winCE to a "poorly debugged set of device drivers" [ianmurdock.com]. However, others have tried that path and failed.

    For gods sake RIM, don't do a palm/netscape

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by afidel (530433) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:59AM (#18855291)
      More like they think that they can get enterprise customers to pay them for simplifying push email to one application rather than having to setup Exchange or Notes or whatever setup to support Windows Mobile devices, and they are right. There are plenty of IT departments out there that are tasked with supporting whatever technology the business decides to use and if they can reduce their own workload for the fairly minimal cost of a BES license they WILL pay.
      • More like they think that they can get enterprise customers to pay them for simplifying push email to one application rather than having to setup Exchange or Notes or whatever setup to support Windows Mobile devices, and they are right. There are plenty of IT departments out there that are tasked with supporting whatever technology the business decides to use and if they can reduce their own workload for the fairly minimal cost of a BES license they WILL pay.

        Uh, I don't know about you guys, but we actually
        • Most enterprises already have BES.....
          Doing the setup for Exchange push is non-trivial in a large environment and requires that you admin mobile devices in two places. If you wanted to dump RIM entirely and go all WM+Exchange then that might make sense, but if you run Notes or any of the other platforms that BES supports then getting it working with WM is even more painfull.

  • Already Available (Score:3, Informative)

    by asphaltjesus (978804) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:11AM (#18854623)
    on my Nokia 9300. I don't use it, but the client is definitely installed.

    This phone doesn't appear to be very popular in the U.S., but it's the most useful phone I've ever owned.
  • What is "push email"? (Seriously.)
    • Email that is pushed out to mobile devices.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_email [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:What is "push email"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sonic McTails (700139) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:23AM (#18854759)
      Pull email is also traditional email. A client polls the server and checks to see if any email is available. If it is, its downloaded. New messages are checked every few minutes but you don't instantly get the message unless your holding an open connection. Push email has the server tell the device that the email is now available, and sends it to the phone (or part of it; I use Microsoft's version with my MDA which only sends the first kilobyte until I request the rest). This saves battery life because the phone doesn't constantly have to poll, and the email is delivered within seconds of it arriving in the server. It's similar to IMAP IDLE expect that the phone doesn't need to keep a connection open.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Intron (870560)
        Seems like that ought to also reduce the server load considerably. It means there is at most one conversation per email, instead of all clients connecting and checking for new mail every X minutes like in normal pop and imap.
        • It's much less about server load, and much more about battery and response time. Polling tends to be cheap, and can actually reduce server load if you're constantly receiving a lot of messages because your poll will result in "download these 10". But all that depends on polling frequency.
      • It's similar to IMAP IDLE expect that the phone doesn't need to keep a connection open.

        The thing is, 'keeping a connection open' is just an abstraction. It's all really just a set of counters and data structures, there's no connection. A 'push e-mail' system talks to a socket listener, but that's just an abstraction too - the kernel sends the incoming packets in a different direction.

        That's not to say that cell phones have as efficient a way of handling an idle TCP connection as they do on their notificat
        • You're right that an open connection is just an abstraction -- a 5-dimensional vector, and that's all -- but it's important to realize that, at the moment, there is a real-ish cost for keeping a TCP connection open: the inability to make or receive voice calls with your handset.

          For whatever reason, phone/network makers have limited phones to having one "conversation" at a time -- a voice call, or a data call... it is exactly analagous to running PPP over dial-up.

          The only way to deliver OOB notification appe
    • It looks like "push email" works off a relatively new IMAP protocol extension.
      1. Client connects to server, sends "IDLE" command
      2. If/when server has mail for that client, it sends a message back through the connection opened (and left open) by the client
      3. After getting a "there are messages for you" message, the client REALLY downloads the actual message (over same IMAP connection?)
      4. Upon timeout, etc., client issues "DONE" and/or reconnects

      Nice whitepaper:
      http://www.isode [isode.com]
      • That's one way of doing it, Microsoft uses a different protocol and I'm betting Blackberry has their own too. For those you need Exchange 2003 or Blackberry Enterprise Server respectively.
      • An SMS? That was the old way, with Exchange 2003 SP2 and WM5 with MSFP (AKU2) you can push e-mail to mobile clients without the need for a text message.

  • Hey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by FlyingSquidStudios (1031284) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:20AM (#18854703) Homepage
    Great! A service I would never pay for is now on two different platforms! Now people can be even more annoying during meetings!

    • Great! A service I would never pay for is now on two different platforms! Now people can be even more annoying during meetings!

      OK. I have to play devil's advocate... Why wouldn't you pay for the service? Have you ever considered that maybe the meetings are engaging enough to keep people from turning to their BlackBerry devices out of sheer boredom?
      • Well, when THEY call the meeting and it's just the two of you and they have to stop every 10 minutes to check their blackberry because they're bored, then maybe they shouldn't be calling the meeting in the first place.
  • Blackberries without Blackberry service.

    Of course, that was a very limited time offer.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FlyingOrca (747207)
      You jest, but that's what I have, and it's great. The Blackberry Pearl is a nicely implemented smartphone, available through various cellular providers with or without data plans but independent of RIM's Blackberry service either way. I like it for handy access to my calendar and seamless integration with my notebook. I love it for the keyboard - I use SMS incessantly for keeping in touch with my band and with my partner when one of us is out of town (especially overseas).

      I'm not really interested in email
    • Heck, you can buy Blackberry service and mysteriously not GET Blackberry service because the service is down and the company wouldn't tell anyone or explain why it was down. Yeah, *that* is the kind of service that I want to buy.

  • Connecting the dots... (Score:5, Funny)

    by LilGuy (150110) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:24AM (#18854783)
    Imagine: The service worked virtually flawlessly for years, and just a week before the announcement that they will be integrating Windows devices, it all goes crashing down.

    RIP RIM.

  • iPhone Connection? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Spencerian (465343) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:34AM (#18854917) Homepage Journal
    Apple's offering to the phone world, the iPhone, as well as competing smartphones, may be convincing RIM to make itself more of a wireless communications service than a PDA provider. Palm is an excellent example of what can happen if you hold on too long to your own OS and not extend yourself when competition (Windows CE/Mobile) arrived.

    PDAs and phone functionality were blending fast before the iPhone was announced. Although it's still vaporware by definition, the iPhone's introduction is changing the competitive landscape. It's in RIM's interests if they can made any of their services with any phone, although the use of Berries would likely be preferable.

    • Re:iPhone Connection? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JacksBrokenCode (921041) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @10:59AM (#18856225)

      PDAs and phone functionality were blending fast before the iPhone was announced. Although it's still vaporware by definition, the iPhone's introduction is changing the competitive landscape.

      I agree that the traditional definitions of PDAs and Phones are homogenizing for many consumers, but can you please explain how this process is being accelerated in any way by the iPhone? From the specs that have been announced so far, there is nothing incredibly novel or revolutionary about the iPhone from the perspective of people currently using smartphones having features that iPhone may (email) or may-not (3rd party apps) have.

      The 2 key features that aren't found on currently existing phones are the Visual Voicemail feature and the Multitouch screen. As somebody who hates clearing voicemails, I very much like the Visual Voicemail idea concept but it's not exactly revolutionary. In other words, it's certainly cool but its absence doesn't obsolesce other units. Same thing goes for the Multitouch which, until I personally experience otherwise, is just a gimmick.

      iPhone will let you play music (like Verizon's Chocolate), watch video (like Motorola's Q), use email/internet (like any BlackBerry/Treo), view pictures (everybody can already do this and nobody does), install custom apps (wait, iPhone can't). iPhone isn't even the first unit to wrap all those features in 1 package, I'm just listing separate models to illustrate the diversity in the marketplace. Bottom line: iPhone isn't changing any landscape, it's simply bringing Apple's style and flair to the current landscape that was established by Palm and RIM.

      RIM opening BES connectivity to other hardware is certainly a good thing, but comparing the currently promised iPhone to BlackBerries/Treos/any-other-true-smartphones is simply naive.

    • RIM has been working on this long before the iPhone was announced.
  • I wonder whether they implemented their WM apps in Java. If so, this probably wont catch on any faster than it will be able to send an email with a 50k jpeg attached... Also, it would be fun installing another VM (in addition to the mandatory .net 1.0 VM, which nothing in the universe uses) on a device with a maximum of 64mB of flash.

    It would make me smile to run java on a segmented memory architecture, however. *wince*

    (I am so incredibly unlucky that my job is to play in the guts of WM daily. I have ne

    • in addition to the mandatory .net 1.0 VM, which nothing in the universe uses

      It's not mandatory, my phone doesn't have it. I've never installed it because, as you say, nothing uses it.

      Useless, expensive binary signing?

      Can't blame MS for that, the telcos and the corporate clients demand it. Trust me, you think it's bad writing software for mobile devices? Try doing it in a configuration where the lusers can bork their phones without really trying. Unless it's a tech audience, lock it down!!

  • Microsoft to RIM (Score:3, Funny)

    by mkiwi (585287) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @10:31AM (#18855733)
    Microsoft: We're worried about this iPhone thing eventually getting into the business marketplace.
    RIM: We understand, but we don't think it's a big deal right...
    Microsoft: Do you want us to give you the chair?
    RIM: No sir.
  • Windows Mobile already provides Push email through MS Exchange via DirectPush. Exchange is by far the most common groupware app, so I don't see who they're targeting with this service, at least running on Windows Mobile. Perhaps Lotus Notes people, or other esoteric implementations, but those are dieing off quickly. Who's actually going to be buying this?

  • Covering all the bases (Score:4, Funny)

    by suckmysav (763172) <suckmysav@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday April 24 2007, @10:54AM (#18856159) Journal
    Cool,

    First they offer us the Blackberry without the network, now they offer us the network without the Blackberry. What next? No network and no Blackberry?

    Hey, I've already got that upgrade!
  • You no longer need to die to go to hell! RIM is bringing you hell on earth!

    Seriously though, does anybody think that the Blackberry UI is awesome? Does the Blackberry really have any fans? I've never met one, though I've met numbers of the opposition, and am one myself.
  • I would have to say that integration will be absolutely key to the success of failure of this product. The Windows Mobile platform tends to be very tightly 'woven' together, so that the applications can share data. If someone doesn't like/use their address portion of th software, but they still want integration with the e-mail and scheduling application -- it has to be there. On top of hat, I could see potential problems with "brand" dilution. If the device is no longer the Blackberry, you may find some are

  • IMAP IDLE (Score:3, Informative)

    by nanosquid (1074949) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @11:29PM (#18865931)
    I don't see why you need anything from Blackberry; many E-mail clients and servers support IMAP IDLE, which gives you the equivalent of push email.

    • Re:Only MS? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dave420 (699308) on Tuesday April 24 2007, @09:32AM (#18854895)
      Because the Microsoft "junk" is hardly limiting them, considering how popular it is. Trying for any other platform other than MS would be limiting them.
      • MS doesn't really have that large of a market share in the mobile phone market...Symbian has a much much larger install base. If I remember correctly WM only has ~5-10% market share, whereas Symbian has 60-70%. It seems to me that it would make more sense for MS to get push mail working on BlackBerry devices (which it may, I have no idea).
        • He's talking about the backend server...
          The way the blackberry enterprise server is limited to a few large proprietary groupware systems (exchange, notes, groupwise), which seem to account for most large corporations.
          It also only runs on windows...

          However i would greatly prefer if they made an enterprise server that:
          a: ran on unix (linux/solaris at least, preferably available as source tho)
          b: supported standard protocols (imap, ical, ldap etc)

          Most ISP mail accounts dont run proprietary groupware, and yet as
          • Looks like Rim is going from the embrace to extend phase of their relationship with Microsoft. It's only a matter of time before Extinguish.
        • They already have Symbian and PalmOS clients, this is just making sure they have the rest of the market covered, and a piece that's growing pretty fast, especially in the market directly competing with their own handheld, the "smartphone" segment.
    • You'd do it if you don't have an exchange server and want push email.

    • I don't get it, if I was running a windows device with outlook already installed, why would I bother w/ blackberry's apps?

      My company uses BlackBerries and we recently hired a new field operative who had his own Treo. Given the choice of installing an app on his Treo that will interface with our BES installation or having to purchase a new BlackBerry handheld unit for him we would rather just install a software package on his device. The fewer server applications & configurations we have to support, t

      • we would rather just install a software package on his device. The fewer server applications & configurations we have to support, the better.

        If that's the case, just get him a blackberry. If support cost is an issue, picking up a new, untried and untested client application just for one guy is a bit much.

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