Hello everyone - my first post on this forum. Sounds like an interesting place!
Has anyone had any real life experience with Blackberry on devices other than blackberry. I know that Nokia have some phones like the 6810 which have blackberry integrated, I've heard stuff about blackberry on the Treo 600 and some carriers integrating it into PPC devices. Has anyone actually experienced any of these products first hand, and if so, are they a viable alternative to a hardware blackberry device?
Nokia has demonstrated the BlackBerry connect software on their 6820 - but not in North America. Right now it's all press releases and such. Nothing seen or shown. Even at the RIM Wireless Enterprise Symposium Palm had nothing to show. Or even discuss. Lots of deals signed (Nokia, Motorola, Palm) but nothing out there yet.
Yes, what njblackberry says is true... we very well may see a Treo running the Blackberry client. Good is a totally separate thing, and is very "Good", but uses different servers than BES so it may not be an option for many.
I was able to play with the Blackberry client on a Pocket PC device, and I thought it was pretty cool. They were using the Pocket Outlook client and had integrated all of the Blackberry type stuff very well. The biggest problem on that device was that there was no keyboard. The ergonomics of the Blackberry will be hard to capture in another device, but for me I'd really like to have it as an option.
so, given that either we will see Blackberry on the Treo, or that we can use something like Good Tech (or any of the many other vendors in this area, Synchrologic, Infowave, Extended Systems to name but a few) - would or could a Treo 600 be considered as a viable alternative to a real Blackberry device?
(I should probably be asking this in the Treo forum, but I thought it would be more controversial here)
My thoughts are that yes, it's got a keyboard, but it's fiddly compared with a blackberry. It's a cellphone and PDA in one, but that makes it hard to use while you're speaking to someone (to look at your calendar for example). The battery life is ok but not anywhere like as good as a RIM device and when it runs flat (which enevitably it will) you loose everything and have to set it up all over again. It'll be out of date in 3 months when the 610 comes out, and again in 6 months when the next itteration comes on the market (probably requiring a new version of the software running on it to do the mail) On the plus side, it's quad band so you can really do some travelling with it and it's really the closest thing that I've seen this far that is a proper phone and a proper PDA.
Could it really do the job of a blackberry as a combined phone/email device?
Could it? Sure - but it doesn't. Because it is not a true, secure end to end solution for business. With BB, I get the BES from RIM, RIM built handhelds running RIM written software. Palms have PalmOne hardware, PalmSource software and a third party add on to redirect e-mail.
Of course, I am biased
BlackBerry Connect is coming; at a "mini WES" held today outside of Manhattan, a VP from RIM told me point blank that we'd be seeing some non-RIM devices running the RIM stack within the next three months.
I am in the wait and see mode for Blackberry Connect. Much of the power of the Blackberry is... as njblackberry said... that they do the whole thing and do it so well. It will be very hard to deliver the client software on another device and make it work as well... but it is possible. I played with it on a Pocket PC, but without a keyboard it was very hard to do a comparison.
I've heard nothing but good things about the Good Link solution, but I have no first hand knowledge of using it in every day usage.
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