Am I on track? New to hosted BES/Exchange

[ds28]

I've done a lot of reading and forum browsing, and I think I've almost got everything covered.

I'm currently using just BIS, using an 8330, and (primarily) a Mac. I really would like to sync my calendars and contacts OTA, and am not fond of using GoogleSync, so that's out. My appointments often contain confidential info, so I'd rather use a paid service with more robust privacy, confidentiality, and reliability. I currently use iCal/Address Book on my Mac, but would be willing to switch to Entourage if it meant seamless syncing.

I work in the non-profit sector, so I'm paying for this out of pocket for the sake of convenience and efficiency.

I could care less about email sync, as I don't find my current load unmanageable via handheld. I know I get a hosted email account, but I don't plan on using it. Really, I'm just paying for the OTA sync.

I was thinking of using MailStreet or some of the other hosted Exchange/BES service. I've had BIS for a few years now, so I just want to make sure I'll still have all the features I enjoy now on BIS. My current VZW BB plan includes BES access, so that part is covered.

1) Are there any simpler/cheaper solutions I'm overlooking?

2) I can still integrate personal IMAP accounts via BIS, right? So if I want 99% of my emails to be sent from my @blahblah.com personal IMAP account, can I do this?

3) Will OWA let me manage my calendar/tasks/to-do's?

4) Since I'm signing up for BES, I'm assuming I get an IT policy on my device. Do these hosted Exchange providers lock anything down?

5) How frequent are outages? From what I've read, it looks like if Company X is having an outage, I won't have BES email, web browsing, etc?


Thanks for any feedback!

[bambuco]

i can only answer #2: once on BES you will be able to hold to your other personal email accounts. I too used BIS for years and just now switched to BES and its been working so good so far. One thing i did notice is that i'm having some issues with Facebook, i'm almost certain my company's IT has locked this out... which isn't that big a deal.