Bury the Berries? Not yet.

Research in Motion (RIM) changed the game when they introduced their Blackberry devices to provide mobile email solutions for Exchange and other email platforms.  Over the last few years, many other companies have stepped up to produce handheld messaging devices, mostly centered around mobile phones and carriers.  There are so many good competitors these days, that some companies are considering if they want to ditch the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) platform in exchange for… well… Exchange.

Exchange 2003 and up allowed for Exchange Active Sync, a series of mobile technologies that allow Exchange servers to communicate directly with mobile devices using push synchronization to deliver email, contacts, calendar items and other information.  Windows Mobile phones are natively equipped with the Active Sync technology; and the iPhone, PalmOS and WebOS, and various versions of software for Android phones have also licensed the Active Sync technology for those platforms. This means that these devices can communicate directly with an Exchange server and send/receive mail, sync contacts and tasks, and answer calendar requests without the need for an intervening server platform like BES.

However, there are two key reasons that I am (at least for now) sticking with my Blackberry device.  First, there is battery life. Talk time is a pretty standard 4-6 hours no matter what OS runs on the phone you’re holding.  But standby/messaging time is another story all together.  With push email active, I have yet to see a Windows Mobile phone go more than 6-8 hours without needing a charge.  If I turn off Bluetooth, push email and just about everything else that uses a transmitter, I can stretch that number to 12-14 hours, but then what’s the point of carrying the device?  Blackberry devices routinely go 24-36 hours of messaging, even with Bluetooth active (but not transmitting).  Android devices can go a bit longer than Windows Mobile, as do iPhones and WebOS systems. They typically run the middle-of-the-road between those two extremes.

Secondly, there is security.  BES allows for a remote device to be wiped natively.  Windows Mobile devices can also be remote-wiped if you’re on Exchange 2007 and up, but iPhone and other OS devices must use 3rd-party software to accomplish this goal.  Remote-wiping is used to provide security if a device is lost or stolen. Once activated, all personal/corporate data on the phone is deleted, rendering it both useless and safe.  Good Technologies has reinvented itself over the last few years as a great provider of remote-wipe and encryption systems for Android and iPhone platforms, but it is one more thing you have to manage in an environment that (based on who would use it) already has a BES server running.

Based on these two factors, I cannot envision organizations ditching BES in favor of an Active Sync solution set exclusively.  Battery life makes these devices difficult for mobile personnel to use successfully, and the need for additional security systems only adds to that concern. For non-mobile users, battery life isn’t as much of an issue (as they’re going to be near a power outlet in many cases).  Security, though, is still a huge concern.  Unless they are on Windows Mobile devices exclusively (no iPhones, no Droids, etc), they’re going to need additional server solutions to be safe.

My prediction is that BES will stay in the Enterprise space for quite some time.  We may see Windows Mobile, Android an WebOS take over more of the marketplace, but until these two issues are significantly improved, they will remain the minority for corporate mobile messaging.