RIM's BlackBerry vs iPhone's ActiveSync

[jettredmont]

WOW, so much misinformation on this thread. I am an Exchange admin and have been for 10 years. Exchange 2007 (despite the horrible management gui) is a fantastic product and is rock solid running on Windows 2008 Server.

I'll have to take your word for it, because I know no one running Exchange 2007. They're all waiting for Exchange 2012 or whatever. Upgrading every cycle is too expensive, from what the IT folks tell me (meaning in licenses, hardware, and training, as well as corporate downtime). Could just be an excuse, but it makes sense. 'Course, if Exchange 2007 is really the panacea of stability and reliability (although graybeards tell me they were told the same of 2003 ...) then it would pay for itself, as we lose big bucks with email downtime as it is!

How many Exchange instances out there are running the latest and greatest from Microsoft?

 

[mm1250]

I'm still running Exchange 2003 in our environment, While I have the Exchange 2007 software sitting on my desk I can't upgrade because we run a 32bit server os and the upgrade is just a pain. I'll get to it sometime in the middle of the year I guess.

 

[theddie]

I know no one cares but i just feel as though i should announce it! Got an iPhone! woop woop! effing finally!

 

[displaced]

BES on Exchange 2007 is like the face-hugger from Alien that stuck itself onto John Hurts face. It sticks it's big nasty feed pipe down the throat of the Exchange Server and wraps it's nasty little tail round it's neck.

It's a friggin parasite - the sooner it's gone - the better.

Any IT department will get the glory of supporting the iPhone without the hassles of supporting BES.

No wonder they call it crackberry - that's what the server architecture engineers must have been smoking when they devised it.

I love this comment It's exactly what our infrastructure guys think of BES.

The BES solution is a kludge. We already have a (relatively...) stable Exchange cluster. Having a separate server for BlackBerry mail is a nonsense -- it's akin to needing separate mail servers for desktops and laptops.

The problem with ActiveSync has always been Microsoft's implementation of it and the shoddy devices it runs on. The protocol itself is OK - especially now it supports DirectPush.

BlackBerrys are not cheap to run - device cost, network cost and the price of licensing and running the BES server. They take a point-of-failure beyond the control of the business.

We use a combination of BB's for the office guys/salesmen and Motorola MCx Windows Mobile-based devices for our field applications. With DirectPush, the MCx's are technically very similar when it comes to email. However, WM6 is a dog's breakfast to use as a day-to-day device and gets trounced by the BlackBerry in usability. That's the only - only - reason the BlackBerrys are still around in my company.

 

[chickenninja]

RIM users are used to mooses reading their mail, canadian moose telegrams are all the rage in canada. i dont see what the issue is.
canada is and always will be america's hat.

 

[pcorajr]

And being dependent on Microsoft and their proprietary Exchange platform that is every administrator's absolute nightmare is better how? At least Blackberry supports Lotus Domino as well - also BB is able to offer push-email to customers who don't want to run their own Exchange or Domino servers through BIS.

There is a Notes client coming down the pipes for the iphone FYI

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/17/iphone-putting-on-a-lotus-notes-suit/

Also BIS in no way, shape or form takes out the burden of running exchange or Domino. BIS just pushes email that it receives, and the mail has to come from somewhere. Why people think that BIS BES are meant to replace exchange. They are just mobile email delivery machines. You still need a freaking mail server.

The only different thing that BIS does it allows people to configure personal e-mail and or different exchange box.

 

[diamond.g]

Under the Mac Mail Account settings there is an option for Exchange - I think it uses some trickery via OWA (Outlook Web Access) to access email. It certainly needs you to enter the OWA address but I'm not specifically stating it doesn't use any form of IMAP as well - I can't say categorically since I've never tried connecting it to mine with IMAP turned off...

I can say for one that it sends via SMTP but you can accept and trust a certificate which is presented and everything works pretty nicely - before you accept that certificate permanently you can see that it's the exact same one presented to you when you try to connect via OWA in a browser - that tells me the mac mail is using the same 'route into the exchange account' - at least at some level.

IMAP over SSL is how you are connecting.

That's so not a solution. Outlook is a poor document management tool and the competition out there for the lack of a better word .. blows. Opentext DM (used to be Hummingbird, used to be PCDOCS before that) for example. How many times have I heard "Hey we're having a closing this weekend and need to swap an 90 Meg file back and forth by email around 350 times and I need to keep every copy. Can my mailbox hold that many?"

Point your people to Sharepoint (or one of it's competitors). Then all they need is a web browser.

I'll have to take your word for it, because I know no one running Exchange 2007. They're all waiting for Exchange 2012 or whatever. Upgrading every cycle is too expensive, from what the IT folks tell me (meaning in licenses, hardware, and training, as well as corporate downtime). Could just be an excuse, but it makes sense. 'Course, if Exchange 2007 is really the panacea of stability and reliability (although graybeards tell me they were told the same of 2003 ...) then it would pay for itself, as we lose big bucks with email downtime as it is!

How many Exchange instances out there are running the latest and greatest from Microsoft?

I will have it in a week or two. But I too will have to upgrade to x64. Which is slightly annoying, but what can you do right? Our main reason for upgrade? 2007 Standard offers some of the same features as 2003 Enterprise. Of course this is on my own private network, my employers main network just got upgraded to 2003 (they still haven't upgraded to XP on the desktop yet).

 

[Glideslope]

FUD, FUD, FUD.

I hate that he portrays us Canadians as a huge security risk to you Americans. Yeah, play on the fears of the ignorant American who thinks anyone on foreign soil must be the bad guy.

I did not take it as a reference to "Canadians" at all. It was simply a geographic reference. Your overreacting.

 

[syadasti]

Security is not an issue with BES but outages certainly are as we've recently seen.

However, lack of carrier choice means a single point of failure for iPhone users too - ATT.

I think RIM was trying harder to keep up with the level of service iPhone users get on ATT - trying to step up their game

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/more-atandt-wireless-outages/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/31/atandt-wireless-data-outages-hit-the-midwest-other-areas/

 

[Shasterball]

FUD, FUD, FUD.

I hate that he portrays us Canadians as a huge security risk to you Americans. Yeah, play on the fears of the ignorant American who thinks anyone on foreign soil must be the bad guy.

This is just a sad, sad post. Goes to show you that it is often the most ignorant that spread BS. I mean is that how you really interpreted the point of bringing up that RIM goes through a NOC? Did you read anything around the word "Canada" in the post?

 

[TJones]

Security is not an issue with BES but outages certainly are as we've recently seen.

However, lack of carrier choice means a single point of failure for iPhone users too - ATT.

I think RIM was trying harder to keep up with the level of service iPhone users get on ATT - trying to step up their game

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/more-atandt-wireless-outages/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/31/atandt-wireless-data-outages-hit-the-midwest-other-areas/

Well at least with the iPhone there's the potential for syncing mail via wifi hotspots, no?

 

[ilogic]

dumb

its amazing how not one person mentioned the comments until someone said something, sorry america for trying to market my product as better than the other leading brand...

 

[dicklacara]

Ignorant American? The truly ignorant probably don't know who Steve Jobs is and could care less what he has to say.

And yes, everyone on foreign soil who doesn't kneel in the direction of Washington D.C. each morning is a bad guy.

What happened to MacRumors, it used to be about Mac Fans excited about rumors. Now it's full of children whining about stuff they know nothing about.

... and politics!

 

[kirk26]

The Blackberry is already disappearing from the corporate world. Everyday I see more and more iPhones appearing in the workplace. People are buying them on their own and then handing in their Blackberries. RIMM will be deader than Palm in two years. I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon buys them.

I guess your not in the government IT field, huh?

 

[Evangelion]

Instead of looking at this from security-perspective, I would look at the points of failure. Take a look:

Every arrow in that diagram is a potential point of failure. Everything those arrows point to is a potential point of failure. In case of the BB, there are seven points of failure, with the iPhone, there are three.

Of course this is vastly simplified analysis, but you get the idea.

 

[diamond.g]

I guess your not in the government IT field, huh?

lol, iPhones will become super popular in the government once they lose the camera and make it so you don't have to install iTunes to sync it.

 

[Tosser]

lol, iPhones will become super popular in the government once they lose the camera and make it so you don't have to install iTunes to sync it.

Hands up anyone that thinks Apple will remove the camera and upset their core* iPhone buyers!


*Core iPhone buyer: Consumer that likes all-in-one devices (Music player, mail client, phone, camera – and bog-standard earphones).

 

[diamond.g]

Hands up anyone that thinks Apple will remove the camera and upset their core iPhone buyers!

(Core iPhone buyer: Consumer that likes all-in-one devices (Music player, mail client, phone, camera – and bog-standard earphones).

*Cricket sounds* *more cricket sounds*


Yeah, I didn't think so either . Of course this is the same group of people that screamed about no Enterprise support.

On a slight side note, I was listening to a podcast called 'Today in iPhone' and the guy mentioned that now noone has anything to complain about Apple had brought everything the IT folks were looking for. I wanted to call and leave a message talking about how my current employer doesn't allow camera phones, nor do most DoD/DoJ/DoE/DoHS/etc facilities. The iPhone would be great for those organizations, but the camera kind screws that idea. Something about the risk of classified information being copied is too great.

 

[BeyondCloister]

I will agree with one comment Jobs made and it has bitten RIM several times and that is the single point of failure...

To be fair though as Apple suffer the same problems some time.
Once more .Mac email is offline and I guess that is due to a single point of failure as I have no alternative way of accessing my email.

 

[Tosser]

*Cricket sounds* *more cricket sounds*


Yeah, I didn't think so either . Of course this is the same group of people that screamed about no Enterprise support.

On a slight side note, I was listening to a podcast called 'Today in iPhone' and the guy mentioned that now noone has anything to complain about Apple had brought everything the IT folks were looking for. I wanted to call and leave a message talking about how my current employer doesn't allow camera phones, nor do most DoD/DoJ/DoE/DoHS/etc facilities. The iPhone would be great for those organizations, but the camera kind screws that idea. Something about the risk of classified information being copied is too great.

Yup. For the same reason (well, and a properly proportioned bezel a la the PB), I would love to get rid of the web cam in my MBP. I honestly can't see the point of such a consumer feature in the MBP.

 

[BeyondCloister]

Yup. For the same reason (well, and a properly proportioned bezel a la the PB), I would love to get rid of the web cam in my MBP. I honestly can't see the point of such a consumer feature in the MBP.

It is very useful for video conferencing with people. I use it often in the workplace environment when working with offsite staff.

 

[smacdoug]

ActiveSync Security?

The iPhone, of course, is not the first to incorporate ActiveSync, so this debate isn't a new one.

The one point that always seems conspicuously absent is that in order for ActiveSync to work, you must punch an inbound hole in your firewall, directly to your Exchange server on port 80 or 443. Exposing your Exchange server directly to the Internet in this manner, is something that should set off alarm bells in the minds of any Network Administrator. I would say this is the reason, along with the fact that some firewalls don't even support the long HTTP connections required for direct push to work, that ActiveSync has failed to make any significant dent in the dominance of Blackberry.

The outbound connection required for BES to work, plus data encryption at the source, is much more secure that the direct access model employed by ActiveSync, even if data is held on a third party server.

Apple would have had better luck in the enterprise if they had licensed Blackberry Connect software. As much as I crave the iPhone, I think I'll have to stick with Blackberry.

 

[Tosser]

It is very useful for video conferencing with people. I use it often in the workplace environment when working with offsite staff.

That doesn't change the consumer part, methinks. Some places don't allow it, and I truly think that Apple introduced it, only to sell to broader segment. The same reason they tried ditching the FW800-port: "It's not broadly used feature".

Edit: You could use the same argument for a camera phone. It'll be useful for some – for instance to take a quick picture of something and mail it back to HQ. Or for video conferencing (assuming a two-camera product). It just doesn't change the basics: It's a liability, and to most "pros" (I use this term loosely here) it's useless.
Anyway, just a tad off-topic

 

[diamond.g]

The iPhone, of course, is not the first to incorporate ActiveSync, so this debate isn't a new one.

The one point that always seems conspicuously absent is that in order for ActiveSync to work, you must punch an inbound hole in your firewall, directly to your Exchange server on port 80 or 443. Exposing your Exchange server directly to the Internet in this manner, is something that should set off alarm bells in the minds of any Network Administrator. I would say this is the reason, along with the fact that some firewalls don't even support the long HTTP connections required for direct push to work, that ActiveSync has failed to make any significant dent in the dominance of Blackberry.

The outbound connection required for BES to work, plus data encryption at the source, is much more secure that the direct access model employed by ActiveSync, even if data is held on a third party server.

Apple would have had better luck in the enterprise if they had licensed Blackberry Connect software. As much as I crave the iPhone, I think I'll have to stick with Blackberry.

I think you can use Certificate based authentication to help mitigate most of that risk or you could force your users to connect to a VPN prior to connecting to the exchange server, then you wouldn't have to open any extra ports.

 

[kis]

Also BIS in no way, shape or form takes out the burden of running exchange or Domino. BIS just pushes email that it receives, and the mail has to come from somewhere.

Believe me, I'm fully aware of that. But there's a HUGE difference in complexity between running a simple IMAP or POP3 server and running a monster like MS Exchange.