1. The user was talking about the protocol the software used for accessing Outlook data, not the protocol it used to send/receive data from the BB smartphone.
2. ActiveSync was a PC sync protocol. He's right. It was used for Synching Windows Mobile phones.
3. Exchange ActiveSync is different and it's used for Synching PIM data to mobile devices (now PCs as well, as Microsoft Outlook supports it in the latest/just released 2013 version).
If you want to make sure your email will sync on every platform without the need to utilize 3+ different protocols and set things up in 3+ different places, you shouldn't be using Gmail. It's that simple. And why are people trying to discredit EAS as a PUSH protocol in an attempt to make IMAP with IDLE extension seem better than what it is (which is, not really all that good and certainly not on par with EAS when you look at what EAS actually does).