Ontario Linux Fest

[John Van Ostrand]

Christopher Browne wrote:
> I find myself consistently underimpressed with the Blackberry
> capabilities.  They are functional enough, but the software on them
> doesn't seem to have changed interestingly in several years.   And the
> basic capabilities have been replicated by all the other phones.
> *All* the phones, these days, can do SMS, calendaring, notes, ToDo
> lists, and run Java-based apps.
>   
One of the original big draws for Blackberries is entirely corporate. It 
has been promoted as a corporate tool up until the Pearl release, which 
was considered a pro-sumer device.

The one main benefit that RIM provides that corporation require is 
security. None of the other providers do as well. It requires a BES but 
when that's in place the blackberry and BES server have fully encrypted 
bi-directional access. RIM claims that even they cannot see the data. 
The Blackberry has access to Intranet sites and all Internet traffic 
goes through the BES and the companies network so it can be controlled 
as well. And if the device is lost or stolen it can be locked, erased, 
or "bricked" from the BES server.

On the functional side there is the contact, calendar, notes and other 
synchronization. I don't know of any other device that provides that 
type of synchronization over the air.

> It will be mighty interesting to see what falls from the reactions to
> the iPhone; that has been a bit of a "call to arms" for the other cell
> phone makers, and I hope that the emergence of "somewhat open"
> Linux-based platforms (OpenMoko for example) will lead to further
> interesting things.
>   
The one thing that has kept RIM from expanding the features of the 
device is battery life and size. Being owned by an Engineer, the mandate 
has been to extend battery life and make the device smaller with every 
iteration. I'm sure that's going to change but it's already made the 
device better in many regards.

The other thing about the Blackberry is that the device is very frugal 
with bandwidth. Using compression and simple ideas it significantly 
reduces the amount of bandwidth used in day-to-day operations. It scales 
images, trims down email, compresses things, etc. Even the blackberry 
maps is transmitted to the device as vectors not bitmaps like Google's. 
The net result is that the carriers are starting to give lower data 
prices to blackberry users. So now it's a monthly savings to use a 
Blackberry instead of another phone.
-- 

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-- 
*John Van Ostrand* 	*Net Direct Inc.* 	 
CTO, co-CEO 	564 Weber St. N. Unit 12 	map 
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  	Waterloo, ON N2L 5C6 	 
john-Da48MpWaEp0CzWx7n4ubxQ at public.gmane.org 	Ph: 866-883-1172 	ext.5102
*Linux Solutions / IBM Hardware* 	Fx: 519-883-8533 	 

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