Comments on: PalmSource and RIM Introduce BlackBerry Connect for Palm OS

so which is the cheapest solution to connect to corporate's internal Exchange email with Palm? I think with BlackBerry, you have to buy the server licenses, plus the monthly service charge for each user, right?

According to the CEO of PalmOne, this software will not be available for any PalmOne device:

-- http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/e8e139acd6102dd880256e59003856f8

If you look closely, the date of the article you link to is March 16, 2004. This was before RIM settled its intellectual property disputes with Good Technology.

Now that these lawsuits are settled (as of March 24 2004), the impedement that Brawley (PalmOne's CEO) discusses is gone.

See http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-5180403.html

My brother works at RIM... now, eventually, I could keep using Palm devices and have the advantages of RIM's infrastructure. A sweet deal indeed, if it comes to fruition.

Palm m505 User

With a Blackberry you never need to poll for your emails, meetings, contacts etc. Everything will be pushed to your BB in real time. You don't need to have a third company server between your device and your inbox. Connections are secured. In fact, there is no better way to stay connected. And traffic is very low, you'll get only 2k of each message, if the message is bigger, you'll receive the next 2k. There is no need to download the whole message. Even most common attachments like PDF, DOC etc. can be read on a (Enterprise) BB without additional software. The attachment is pushed in 2k steps from your Domino-/Exchange server. Great: battery life is much more better than any other Palm with wireless features out (treo 600).

Sure there's a "third party server" in there, it's the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. It's the piece that integrates email and intranet access with the devices.

For an explanation of the BlackBerry architecture, see the articles I wrote which can be accessed from http://www.ericgiguere.com/blackberry

Eric

I believe visorfreak's point was that a company's email never leaves their own equipment, one of which has to be a BES server. At least that's the way I read his comment. We have a BES and use it with Notes/Domino and I carry a BB.

The real magic behind the Blackberry is never having to worry about a signal. When a signal is present, any emails you've composed will be sent, and incoming email is pushed to your device.

In practice, this means that on a subway ride, I can read emails waiting for me on my device, and reply to emails, all in the absence of signal. The second I get out of the subway station, any new email is pushed in, and any composed messages are sent. In the presence of a signal, the second an email arrives, the device notifies me.

It is a very unique experience, and very addictive because emails are sent/received instantenously, all the time, much like instant messaging. If you get a lot of email, idle time (like waiting for someone, or taking a subway ride or a cab ride), is productive time. It is a masterpiece of instant communication.

I carry a Blackberry and a Tungsten T3 with me always. IMHO, the Blackberry makes a terrible PDA, but is indisposable because of how well it handles emails. Done correctly, converging RIM's push email technology and Palm's PDA technology into one device will be a near perfect device.

Thanks for the explanations.

So, if Palm supports something like this, what would be the Palm equivalent of the always-connected attribute of the Blackberry? Would it require hardware such as a Treo that has an always-connected wireless technology? The other wireless technologies (Bluetooth, WiFi) are typically much more intermittent than GPRS.

A cell phone already is "always connected" -- how do you think it gets notified that there's an incoming call? There are Blackberry devices that use GPRS; internally, they may keep the data connection alive all the time, or they may use SMS as a "kick-start" to wake them up when they aren't connected. Blackberry connectivity on Palm OS devices would use the same techniques.

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Ben Combee
http://palmos.combee.net - PDA programmer weblog

To further address this... as long as there's a way to detect the presence of a network, you can do the delayed mail send/receive trick of the Blackberry with an existing wireless technology, be it 802.11b or Bluetooth. The device just needs the ability to check for the network and send/receive messages, all in the background. While Palm OS Cobalt makes that a lot easier to implement, it can be achieved with some effort on Palm OS Garnet (5.x).

--
Ben Combee
http://palmos.combee.net - PDA programmer weblog