Blackberry alternatives for large firms

[Kjesse]

Hello all I'm about to do some research but thought the collective CP brain trust might help point me in the right direction.

My firm has been using blackberrys since they were available. We have blackberry enterprise servers and we are happy with how they are working. We deploy about 800 blackberrys firm wide.

We have noticed that blackberry no longer has a monopoly on the business market and want to know what real alternatives are out there.

Besides usability, our biggest concern is security of the information that is passed to the blackberry. Encryption and security is of utmost importance as we deal with very sensitive information on a daily basis. My understanding is that the new solutions no longer use dedicated in house servers but I'm not sure how that works or if it is as secure as having in house servers.

Any information you can provide would be appreciated.

EDIT 1: My brief research suggests that we could use Android devices to connect to our existing BES's... I did not know that. One of the driving issues here is allowing our user base to choose which handheld they want without compromising functionality or security. I should add we are using either Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino, I'm going to find out which.

[Hemi-Cuda]

the company i work for uses BES but I have my Android connected to exchange via the OWA http address and it pushes email to my Galaxy S2 just as fast as it does my blackberry. be warned though that the stock email clients on most Android phones are pretty bad for exchange, you'll want to invest in an app like Touchdown to get the most out of it (Touchdown blows away Blackberry for email, it's like having a mini-Outlook app on your phone)

[Rathji]

If you want an IT perspective: It is a bit of a pain to need to run BES at all it is expensive and takes resources to set up and maintain. That kind of it a sunk cost at this point and it really doesnt matter what happens, you will need to maintain it. Staying with what you have will probably cause a lot less headache for your IT.

Having people get random phones with random Android/BB versions that all need to be set up and managed individually is a pain. If you can tie them into BES and get all the same management functions (password reset/remote device wipe), then I would suggest adding that since it wont really cause that much of a headache.

[sclitheroe]

You could investigate mobility as a service as an angle too - outsource the hardware lifecycle, contract management, application lifecycle, mail flow & connectivity, end-user support, etc. This lets you get a fixed handle on the per-head costs associated with mobility, and could potentially make you more agile in terms of being able to support multiple device types at a fixed cost.

[J Diddy]

If all you need to provide to your users is email, contacts, calendar and the ability to make phone calls try and stay on BES and Blackberrys as long as you can. If you need to provide them with Doodle Jump then have fun trying to maintain and support the millions of types of phones out there. Good luck figuring out how to prevent users from installing some of the Android malware apps on their device. Don't forget to tell your iPhone users to shut down the 60 apps (not business related apps most likely) they have running in the task bar or so that they don't come complaining that their phone battery only lasts 4 hours.

I hate the fact that our users think they are entitled to a phone that is not a Blackberry. The company pays the bills and provides the devices. The users are provided with what they need...and not what they want.

Anyway, my rant probably wasn't the solution you are looking for. I just got set off because I just finished dealing with two people who came in after the weekend with water damaged phones because they thought they needed their phones for water skiing.

[OilKiller]

You don't need a phone when you water ski?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

If all you need to provide to your users is email, contacts, calendar and the ability to make phone calls try and stay on BES and Blackberrys as long as you can. If you need to provide them with Doodle Jump then have fun trying to maintain and support the millions of types of phones out there. Good luck figuring out how to prevent users from installing some of the Android malware apps on their device. Don't forget to tell your iPhone users to shut down the 60 apps (not business related apps most likely) they have running in the task bar or so that they don't come complaining that their phone battery only lasts 4 hours.

I hate the fact that our users think they are entitled to a phone that is not a Blackberry. The company pays the bills and provides the devices. The users are provided with what they need...and not what they want.

This actually sums up my opinion pretty well.

Unless you are really interested in increasing your PITA factor, giving users choice always ends badly for IT.

That said, if you could manage to get a reasonably priced mobility as a service option, like Scott mentioned, it might make something like that doable without your IT guys climbing the water tower.

[Azure]

Funny how nobody has actually mentioned a viable alternative.

Everyone loves to pile on RIM these days, but the fact is they are still king of the business world.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Azure

Funny how nobody has actually mentioned a viable alternative.

Everyone loves to pile on RIM these days, but the fact is they are still king of the business world.

There isn't an alternative out there yet unless you can afford to hire another body or two to support phones full time.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Azure

Funny how nobody has actually mentioned a viable alternative.

Everyone loves to pile on RIM these days, but the fact is they are still king of the business world.

There are tons of alternatives, it's just that from an IT perspective, there's no compelling advantage to move an entire user base to a different platform wholesale.

Supporting ActiveSync devices isn't really any harder than BES, and there are tons of tools to provide the level of control that BES exerts on Blackberries for iOS devices. I'd hesitate to confuse a lack of skill or experience in most in-house IT shops with RIM being "king of the business world" - supporting multiple handsets should not be an obstacle for properly trained staff provided the proper tools (and that last part is usually the catch - I'm not bagging on IT guys)