Options available when my device is not supported on BES?

[dynot]

A colleague of mine at work has a BB Storm 1 and he told me that our IT department told him that our company BES does not support this device. We use Lotus Notes for our mail system.

Since I will be getting the Storm 2 very soon I want to know what options I have to get my email delivered and synched to my phone as well as my calendar entries.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

[Tiassa]

What puzzles me is that the BES can't support the Storm.

Anyway the next question is which version of Lotus Notes? If you are running 8.01 or higher, you can use the BB to get your mail Domino Web Access. In 8.0 they included an "ultra-light" mode" which is designed for mobile phones and the like. Not a great answer, but the only thing I can come up with.

[GlenB]

The BES has a vendor and device.xml file which defines which devices it will recognise. These can be replaced with versions from RIMs support site to add all devices.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[eBoyDog]

There aren't any BlackBerry devices that BES doesn't support. The primary purpose of Blackberrys is BES and RIM, all the "cute" stuff like BIS, Facebook, Twitter apps for the average retail user all came out the orginal design of BES.

Now that's not to say that YOUR IT Department may have made some type of choice to NOT support the Storm (or the Storm 2) but I would guess that's their choice for what ever reason.

I'm a BES admin for my company and I take pride in that there isn't a BlackBerry device that my server won't support as that's it's strength to handle any BB, from any wireless carrier.

Now the catch might be that that they won't pay for the addtional BES data service for the device or that they only support company owned devices. I'm with a smaller organization and we support any user that has a BlackBerry BUT if it's a personal device, that person is responsible for the license CAL and the addtional data service on the device.

It's may well come down to your company does not support personal owned devices since when you activate your BlackBerry to BES, you give up total control of the device to your IT department which they can limit what you can load on it, what things work on the BlackBerry down to the point they can turn the camera off, use the GPS to track you and monitor your SMS text messages so the question really is if your Storm 2 is your own personal device, do you want the IT department to have that type of control over it?

Personally, I don't control my BES users nor limit what they can do with it but I can if I want to....

Regardless of your company's email plateform, you should be able to sync email, contacts and calendar from Notes to your device, in the worst case it might not be wireless sync if you use your Desktop manager to do a USB sync without BES activation as my company uses Novell GroupWise so don't think that you have a obscure email system!

GroupWise is technically the red hair step-child for RIM!

[CanuckBB]

As eBoyDog said, it could be up to your I.T. dept. There are legit support reason to limit the types of devices allowed on the BES.

[dynot]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Been out of town since my OP and didn't have a chance to reply.

The phone is a personal one and my current phone - a Pearl - is on our BES. I guess based on these replies its not just a matter of connecting to DM and having everything ported over to the S2.

The Notes version I am using is 7.something but I will be upgrading to 8.

Guess I'll just have to ask IT that they add support. I have nothing to hide and they do not really micro-manage to the best of my knowledge.

[jlsparks]

Wow, Lotus Notes..

But in all seriousness it's a totally inaccurate statement to say that BES can't support S1 or S2. Particularly considering I'm glancing at my S2, which is on a BES... As was previously stated your IT department might not support certain devices, but it's a fallacy to state that BES won't support them.

Lotus Notes. Really.

[dynot]

Originally Posted by jlsparks

Lotus Notes. Really.

LOL...am I to take this as meaning Notes is not a popular email platform? Are others that much better? I just use what is provided to me and try to adapt to it.

Anyway, if our IT refuses to support it can I sync Notes with something like Gmail and have access to my business email and calendar on my phone like that?

[dynot]

OK...I just read a post elsewhere in these forums about a guy who set up his Notes work email on his BIS. I know this'll do nothing for my calendar entries but at least I'd get my email.

What do you all think...would this work?

[Tiassa]

Originally Posted by dynot

LOL...am I to take this as meaning Notes is not a popular email platform? Are others that much better? I just use what is provided to me and try to adapt to it.

No there are just a lot of Notes haters out there who don't think that a scalable, virus-free, reliable e-mail system that you can upgrade in place (as opposed to "buy new servers, port the data and hope the cutover works") is a good thing.

Originally Posted by dynot

OK...I just read a post elsewhere in these forums about a guy who set up his Notes work email on his BIS. I know this'll do nothing for my calendar entries but at least I'd get my email.

What do you all think...would this work?

It should, assuming that your IT folks allow you to access your Notes mail on the web (it's called "iNotes"). Here's a how-to: BlackBerry Cool explains Lotus iNotes/BlackBerry Internet Service integration - BBHub

[eBoyDog]

You Exchange and Notes folks get all the love from RIM, try being the GroupWise BES administrator...... Technically there isn't BES 5 for GroupWise (yet).

[xlover]

here's a question an offshoot of this topic, my second post too! i currently have an 8330 on my company's BES, its a personal phone however i want to get a tour 2 9650 as soon as it comes out. will there be any issues activating this day one on the BES? more specifically does the IT administor have to add that phone to a list of supported devices or would it be automatically supported and the administrator would have to choose not to support it. My company is huge so i dont think they would be bothered choosing not to support a device however putting the wheels in motion to have them to choose to support a new device might be difficult.

[eBoyDog]

I had a 8330 on my BES and then I upgrade to the tour, no problem at all.

In the worse case if the BES admin hasn't updated the device xml files on the server, the BES won't display your model correctly however all other functions should work.

The easy way for BES admin's to update the device xml file is download the latest greatest desktop manager and install it the BES, then everything is updated.

The only tecnical reason for an IT department to not support a particular model of BlackBerry is due to their own department policy or rules and such isn't limited by BES it's self.

[dynot]

How ironic! There is a mobile app that works only on the iPhone. I believe its iNotes.

I know RIM is trying to push BES but that shouldn't prevent a similar app for Blackberry.

[CanuckBB]

Originally Posted by xlover

here's a question an offshoot of this topic, my second post too! i currently have an 8330 on my company's BES, its a personal phone however i want to get a tour 2 9650 as soon as it comes out. will there be any issues activating this day one on the BES? more specifically does the IT administor have to add that phone to a list of supported devices or would it be automatically supported and the administrator would have to choose not to support it. My company is huge so i dont think they would be bothered choosing not to support a device however putting the wheels in motion to have them to choose to support a new device might be difficult.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. The larger the enterprise, the more likely they will have a list of approved and supported devices.