Blackberry v Windows Mobile Devices 1

[enbw]

Hi,

Sorry but have no experience of Blackberry and very limited experience of connecting mobile devices to an exchange 2003 box.

We are under pressure to deploy blackberry devices from our sales team. Firstly, what are the top level advantages between using blackberry or windows mobile devices?

In terms of management/administration is blackberry easier than windows mobile devices?

We are looking for around 15-20 users probably. Also to throw into the mix we are looking to move exchange 2007 in the next year. Should we wait until that has been deployed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Azza76]

Hey there,

We were in the same boat as you. We needed to implement mobile email and we plumped with Blackberries. We currently have 15 Blackberry users on Exchange 2003.

I actually prefer the Windows Mobile devices to Blackberry devices - but admin and management is vastly superior on the Blackberry platform than the Windows Mobile platform.

I have to admit we installed the Blackberry solution around 3 months ago - and it has kinda just worked ever since. I'm by no means a pro with the Blackberry software - but once installed and configured - it just works! We don't use the platform for anything jazzy, and we don't have any additional software on the handsets, but for what we need it for seems a good fit.

Also - since we don't need more than 15 users - we were able to buy the Blackberry Express software for free - and just pay for the additonal 10 CALs.

Hope that helps.

 

[58sniper]

From a cost standpoint, you don't need additional software to manage Windows Mobile devices. Also, that means troubleshooting is easier, since there is no middleware piece. No licensing costs, either.

There is a free add on for the server that does give you some more flexibility. Read about it at

http://www.petri.co.il/download_activesync_webadmin.htm

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[MarkArnold]

Blackberry, great, $$ price.
WM, great, no price.
Blackberry, tadge limited but management good.
WM, not limited, more Exchange integrated but management not great out of the box.

You'll find Jihadists on both side of the fence. I'm firmly on the WM side but fully appreciate that the BB device is a capable device and you'll tear it out of the hands of cold-dead-executives.

 

[Zelandakh]

BB - users love them, they look good and even sales guys can use them.
WM - not the same cache, more flexible, user level wiping, much cheaper to deploy, pain in the rear to administer.

If you've already got the BB devices working, you can stick with that. But the WM devices are just better. Touch screen solitaire on WM makes the BB users green with envy...

 

[Davetoo]

I'm on the other end of that spectrum..absolutely detest WM devices, love the BB's. Management wise...there is none on my end. When the users tried to get the WM to work I spent literally weeks to get them to even halfway work.

No thanks...deployed the BES...assign the users to it, give them the activation password and I'm all done. If they lose it, I can wipe it and assign a password remotely, effectively creating a "brick" for whomever finds it. If they want to, they can wipe it themselves locally.

Until I actually used one I never understook the crackberry aspect...now I do.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[enbw]

Thanks for everybodies time on this. I think the initial way forward would be windows. Will see after the cost analysis is done.

Thanks again.

 

[Knackster]

I agree with Davetoo on this.

I only have 7 users on my BES, but setting it up and getting it on line was very straightforward. Once you activate a BB on the BES, I don't hear from my users as it jut works.

Other than backing up the BES, I rarely perform any other maintenance on it.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

 

[markdmac]

I'll chime in here too and say I absolutely and vehemently HATE the BlackBerries.

BES server is in my opinion the biggest piece of crap ever written.

First off, why should it be necessary to deploy a whole separate server to get email to a remote device?

Install a Public Certificate and your Windows Media device setup is an easy task. If you self sign, then there are extra steps to take.

I support a number of clients that we took over support for and they are running SBS with BES installed. BES is so flaky we fear having to reboot after installing patches because we just don't know if the darn thing will keep syncing with the devices afterwards.

I personally have an older i730 PocketPC and then my company phone is a 6700 PocketPC. I never have problems with Exchange ActiveSync.

The key to getting ActiveSync to work is to ensure your IIS permissions are set correctly and to use the Public Certificate as already mentioned.

Here are the settings for IIS.

IIS Settings

Default Web site
    Enable Anonymous access
    Integrated Windows Authentication
(doesn’t really matter)

Exadmin
    Integrated Windows Authentication
    Require SSL
        Require 128 bit

Exchange
    Basic Authentication
        Default Domain \
    Require SSL
        Require 128 bit

Exchange-oma
    Integrated Windows Authentication
    Basic Authentication

ExchWeb
    Enable Anonymous access
    Require SSL
        Require 128 bit

Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync
    Scripts and Executables
    Exchange Application Pool
    Basic Authentication
        Default Domain DomainName

OMA
    Scripts Only
    ExchangeMobileBrowseApplicationPool
    Integrated Authentication
        Default Domain DomainName

Public
    Basic Authentication
        Default Domain DomainName
    Integrated Auth
    Require SSL
        Require 128 bit

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[markdmac]

Pat, a star for you for pointing to that add on.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[Knackster]

I do need to admit something here:

I was smitten with WM6 before getting blackberrys but since my company uses Nextel 2-way's, I had to keep that fucntionality for my users. That in of itself was the only driving factor with deploying the BES.

If we didn't need 2-way functionality, I would probably have gone the activesnc route.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

 

[DanMIS]

Another thing worth mentioning is that Blackberries are tougher on the server. One Blackberry is the equivalent of 4-5 Outlook clients connecting simultaneously.

My servers can handle it, but some may not be able to.

Dan

CCA Citrix 4.0
MCSA: Messaging 2003
MCSE 2003

 

[TNGPicard]

Howdy All - I have to support both Windows Mobile and Blackberry users and I'm finding both to be an equal pain. Personally I love my blackberry more than the WM devices but I cannot get BES to work - the whole separate server thing and the encrypted e-mails that it wants to use do not get along well with my spam and perimeter virii solutions it seems. WM, I've been fighting with for a while. That said, let me ask this: With ONE exchange server, no front end/back end configuration, and forms based authentication for accessing mailboxes, mobile active sync work? We've bought a public SSL certificate and are not self signing, whenever the devices go to sync, I get messages in the event log with different errors (I'm not in a place I can get to them right now) but when I google, I keep finding that I can't use mobile active sync & forms based authentication if I'm not running a front end server. I also want to require that SSL be used when accessing e-mail over the web (which is a problem right now since I have some users accessing their mail via POP3 from their BB's or WM devices).

MarcDMac - I'm kinda hoping your IIS configuation above might be the ticket i'm looking for and maybe I have something set wrong.

Any other thoughts?


Mark / TNG

 

[markdmac]

IIS is where I would start.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[TNGPicard]

Marc et all,

Exchange-oma
    Integrated Windows Authentication
    Basic Authentication

I don't have an Exchange-OMA directory or virtual site. I have OMA without the Exchange on it.

Should I change that?

I'm waiting on one of my WM users to come in so I can test! I made all the other permission changes. Maybe this will start to work!

Mark

 

[markdmac]

Are you running Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003 or Windows 2000? Do not rename the folder. I believe systems that are running on Windows 2000 or were upgraded from Windows 2000 would not have it.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[johnny99]

Last time I did look into this what I found out was this (for the installation where i did it)

Supporting only 30 people with Windows Mobile (tope management and sales) almost killed 1 Exchange tech and 1 supporter.

My initial design for this was based on BlackBerry and RIM only devices to replace Windows Mobile.

Someone (a technical end user) wanted BB on his Nokia Phone and somehow he did manage to get my IT manager running that way (me shouting and screaming all the way)

That setup worked for this single user and also for the Exchange Tech who had to support it.

The the first 10 users where implemented with BB on Nokia and BANG we had support problems and users screaming.
Short storry was that a very expirienced and IT understanding user would work fine. Except for this it was a nightmare.

The IT manager again was thinking. Ohh this is just initial problems and we got the next 10 users.
Same problem except now we had 20 users screaming and bugging up all work at the exchange tech and IT hotline couldn't manage this.

Again the IT manager was thinking. Ohh this is just initial problems and we got the next 10 users.
Same problem except now we had 30 users screaming and bugging up even more work at the exchange tech and IT hotline couldn't still not manage this.

After 3 months more and users still complaining about things that didn't work the IT manager started to think that maybe we should get 5 RIM devices for testing.
They got up and runnning it a few min.

So the first 10 users where moved to RIM.
They where glad.
We moved 10 more and the same result.

After 2-3 more month we where asked about the Windows Mobile users, and nothing had changed. Still users screaming, still killing the Exchange tech and IT Hotline still couldn't handle the support (80% still going to the Exchange tech)

We where asked if we got any comlaining from the RIM users.
Our answer was: WE DON'T KNOW.
The IT manger looked at us. What? Give me your feedback.
Answer again: WE DON'T KNOW.
Him starting again.

Then we again tried to explain him that not one single RIM users had contacted us for 3 months, so we didn't have any feedback to give him.

Then he finally accepted my more then 1 year old initial design.

All other users where moved to RIM except for the initial end-user that lived fine with the solution and understod how to handle his own problems and also understod the limitations.
The exchange tech also kept on using his Nokia (and his Windows Mobile)

The leason learned was that use BlackBerry with RIM only devices. Force the end-users to the limitations that is in the RIM devices and save yourself for a support nightmare and safe a lot of money for the company (support and end-user time was many many times higher then any extra load on any servers or extra servers for that way)

IT security loved the solution because of the simple and integrated security on the devices and the central control of it.

And a users that has a defect RIM device can just walk into any shop in the world that has a RIM device on sale, plug-in his SIM card and call IT helpdesk and he will be up and running is a very short time.

My advice is BlackBerry in all situations except in a very few ones.
Most users don't need any features that the doesn't have anyway and having games on the device isn't a company problem.

And never give Windows Mobile to: Top management, Sales, Marketing, Doctors, Enginers and unexpirienced end-users.

That was the leason we got (and had to pay to learn)

/johnny

 

[LWComputingMVP]

I had a blackberry for a year... it was ok. I support a small business with several blackberry devices but no BES. Frankly, they suck. They continually fall offline if there's a hickup in our network connection, assuming that our passwords must have changed so it will NEVER TRY AGAIN, unless you go and tell it to... then it will work until the next hicup (which could be as simple as a reboot to install patches).

I also didn't find it a very extensive platform... just wasn't impressed.

Then I got a Windows Mobile device (a blackjack). I've got plenty of complaints about the phone in general, but NONE about the reading of e-mail or the configuration of Exchange. I've done it once for a client and once for myself... worked flawlessly. ActiveSync with a PC was a HUGE pain, but if you sync wirelessly, it has worked flawlessly for me... and I have access to any folder in my inbox I want.

Someone said they can wipe the data in a blackberry if it's lost... You can do the same thing with Exchange and a Windows Mobile combination.

I'm trying to get my existing clients using Blackberrys to switch over... these are computer illiterate people who are so not knowledgeable that they have to have me sign in to the provider's website and re-authenticate them.

And I've thought about using BES on the one client... I'm just concerned with what might happen in installation - it's an SBS box and I've read a few things describing problems with installing it on SBS boxes.

 

[Zelandakh]

I've got a couple of BES boxes and the BB devices work well and the punters love them. Horses for courses really - different people like different things.

I'd rather than a WM6 device but BB is the way they wanted to go.

 

[TNGPicard]

MarcdMac - Exchange 2003 - not upgraded from Exchange 2003. Its on Win 2k3 as well.

With the settings posted above I got a little further! Still not working but further. ActiveSync starting in the event log shows up whereas before it showed a security problem. The device says syncing but gives me an error which I think is 0x080140015 (not sure, not at the office with it handy) - basically its a security authentication bug. Still though, everything I find says I can't use WM with forms auth and SSL. Just for fun I tried not requiring SSL and same bum luck. I'm wondering if maybe it has something to do with Exchange also being a DC?


I'm kinda thinking this whole project might just wait until I upgrade to Exchange 07 later this year. New box, new rules, new OS, new install. and I can fight with it all I want without having to worry about it going down in the middle of the day.

MAL