Rating: Keep BlackBerries – lose RIM dependency
Whilst RIM has offered its enterprise customers one month of free technical support (see previous story here), IceWarp claims that its customers with BlackBerry devices were “largely unaffected” by the RIM outage. That’s because IceWarp’s software architecture enables users to bypass the RIM infrastructure and connect a BlackBerry device directly to a corporate email server. Like many of RIM’s competitors, IceWarp’s product uses SyncML or ActiveSync standards to ensure emails bypass RIM’s infrastructure. Alternative software vendors like IceWarp might prove the ideal solution for IT and network mangers who don’t want to abandon their BlackBerries – given that they are highly efficient email terminals. However, by adopting a solution like IceWarp means there’s no need to throw the BlackBerry out with the bath water.“The RIM outage reached monstrous proportions because of the RIM email synchronisation structure,” maintains Ladislav Goc, IceWarp’s president.
“Such dependency is very dangerous. If the RIM servers are affected, millions of people are cut from their business-critical applications.”
Like many of RIM’s competitors (offering alternatives to RIM’s BES offering), IceWarp’s product uses SyncML or ActiveSync standards to ensure emails bypass RIM infrastructure.
“The advantages are obvious,” Goc claimed. “Your emails are not dependent on the RIM data centre’s behaviour; your emails are stored on your company’s own server; and you can still use your favourite BlackBerry device!”
As Goc say, millions of businesses are accustomed to BlackBerries and the only real bottleneck that needs to be removed is the RIM synchronisation dependency.
John Cooper, IceWarp’s director of North American sales, explained, “When using just an IMAP or POP connection then the traffic does route through the RIM infrastructure.
When using ActiveSync, it is direct between the device and IceWarp server – it does not pass through the RIM infrastructure at all.
While BlackBerry devices are gradually losing their market share, IceWarp believes they still have a future in the corporate world.”
