[lnichols]

3. There was continuous whining and wingeing from users here in the forums that BIS compression reduced performance, and similar demands for ActiveSync to replace push email. The familiar cry then was "bandwidth is unlimited, we prefer using more data if it gets better performance". RIM listened to the users.

I guess they shot themselves in the foot. All I can say is "told ya so!"

Yes how many users of the other platforms would come in here and say that the e-mail experience was just as good or better than BIS. I've seen some now asking why it is gone or make statements like now that they are inferior to BIS will you stay. All the whining over the extremely rare BIS outages. I'm also going to lose my International BlackBerry plan with BB10 so may have to keep a 9900 for travel.

[joeldf]

I will admit that I've wanted ActiveSync for a long time. I am grateful that BB10 has it. I will finally be able to connect to my office exchange account. BIS let me connect through exchange's OWA, but that only did part of the job.

But of course, ActiveSync does nothing for my personal pop3 email account.

[dorbit]

BIS isn't killed off. It still plays a roll in BB10. Services like BBM, BBProtect, etc. all go through the BIS.

We're going to do another post further clarifying the roll of BIS in BB10. the big thing is that you don't need a special data plan now to use BB services... but the architecture is still being put to use in a big way.

Maybe they need to rebrand BIS to BlackBerry Cloud Services or something like that.

The "big thing" is you don't need a special plan? Really? No compression? No push? Are we to understand those are "small" things?
I think it's time to come clean with an explanation of the NOC and BB10. You said you would clarify. When?

[twstd.reality]

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It had to be done. Something needed to change.

[Omnitech]

I liked the fact that BIS held images. Too often people have company logos and other crap images in their emails and I don't want or need to see it every time. Less crap for me to look at, less crap wasting my data.

Well you don't need BIS to get that functionality. Almost any decent email client these days allow you to throttle the maximum amount it will retrieve from the server for a single message if you want to limit data usage.

Eudora can do it, Thunderbird can do it, Pegasus Mail can do it, The Bat! can do it, Apple Mail can do it, Mulberry can do it, maybe even Outlook Express can do it. On the mobile front, K-9 Mail for Android can definitely do it as I have posted previously.

[qbnkelt]

Yep. We are deploying BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 on Microsoft Small Business Server 2012 (Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials) which includes Microsoft Exchange 2010. This is not a BlackBerry supported configuration so we hope it will work since Microsoft Small Business Server 2012 is based upon Microsoft Windows Server 2008 which is supported. Don't get me started on the BlackBerry Bridge fiasco for BlackBerry OS 10. Could you dispatch a few hungry dragons to Waterloo, Ontario, Canada?

Yah I can spare a couple.....

SERIOUSLY angry with BB over this ridiculous decision. Not only flip the finger at consumers who liked BIS and everyone who valued data compression, but also at small businesses who lack the license requirements for BES or a free lance contractor who travels internationally. I am thinking of a loved one who will be seriously, seriously impacted. Means our communication will suffer GREATLY and he is actually thinking about doing away with BB altogether, and I've NEVER heard him say that.

I never thought that I would see the day when BB flipped the bird to so much of its customer base.

[anon62607]

As something of a BIS and BB neophyte, can someone explain exactly how BIS works and how data can be free and unlimited over BIS worldwide when at the end of the day, the data has to be transmitted over the same licensed spectrum that the carriers had to pay tens of billions of dollars for? Is there something else going on?

The most valuable thing a carrier owns is time per spectrum and they generally charge highly for it, how did it work out that a carrier is willing to give up unlimited time on that spectrum when they could be charging much more for it from non blackberry customers?

I don't understand how it worked out.

[qbnkelt]

As something of a BIS and BB neophyte, can someone explain exactly how BIS works and how data can be free and unlimited over BIS worldwide when at the end of the day, the data has to be transmitted over the same licensed spectrum that the carriers had to pay tens of billions of dollars for? Is there something else going on?

The most valuable thing a carrier owns is time per spectrum and they generally charge highly for it, how did it work out that a carrier is willing to give up unlimited time on that spectrum when they could be charging much more for it from non blackberry customers?

I don't understand how it worked out.

Different people will have different reasons for valuing BIS.

For me, I can actually live with my Android or iPhone except for on travel. Because data goes through a compression process as it goes through the network operation center you end up sipping data as opposed to gulping it as Android and the iPhone do. For people who travel, this compression is a godsend.

People complained of email size limits as it went through the NOC an was delivered through your carrier but for international travelers it meant staying connected at a minimum of data consumption and therefore lesser costs.

Additionally, there is no mining of information as there is in Gmail.

To me, those things are infinitely more important than simply the frequency of mail delivery. I would gladly remain on BIS if I had to pay an extra$10 more for it. To me, data compression is that important. It has ALWAYS been that important.

Sent from my SEXY HOT RED SGIII using Tapatalk 2

[abhibh]

I would like to add 1 more thing that BIS eventually makes your battery life better compared to other phones.
1. Because your phone doesn't have to poll and check email every 15 mins or hour. The servers do that and send to your phone.
2. The data sent to your phone is compressed that means the data connection has to download less data so the phone battery is consumed less.

I am currently using a Torch 9800 and its been like 14 hours since charge and its down to 75% and its on WiFi (which actually helps save battery). By the time i put it on charging everyday its between 30-40%. And on a daily basis i receive anywhere between 100-200 emails, 2 hours talking on phone, a lot of BBM, WhatsApp, Group messages etc.
In past 14 hours i have received like 200 BBM's, 30-40 WhatsApp, 50 Emails, 20-30 group messages. and 5-7 SMS. I have talked around 20 mins on phone.

[ssbtech]

IMAP is just not a reasonable replacement for BIS.

IMAP:
If you've deleted a message on your phone, it deletes it from the server on the next sync. Many people get lots of emails that they don't need on their phone, but want to have saved on their PC. Don't tell me this doesn't happen. I don't want to wade through dozens of emails on my phone to find one or two that I do want to keep on my phone for a few days. I hate clutter, keeping lots of emails jumbled up in one big folder really ticks me off. That's why I hate "unified" inboxes that bring together email, text, facebook, BBM, etc...

The other problem with IMAP is that it still needs some form of connection open to the server, some form of data going back and forth to keep that connection open. This has an adverse effect on data usage as well as battery life.

POP:
You just can't overlook the simplicity and convenience of "Leave a copy on the server". I get emails through 5 different accounts with my ISP and I have them all sorted into Outlook folders automatically based on who they are from. When I get 4 or 5 emails at a time, I don't mind having these together in one little list I can check on my phone. If needed, I can reply from the same email address as BIS provides a nice SMTP relay or I can delete them from the phone and deal with them when I return to my PC.

[abhibh]

IMAP is just not a reasonable replacement for BIS.

IMAP:
If you've deleted a message on your phone, it deletes it from the server on the next sync. Many people get lots of emails that they don't need on their phone, but want to have saved on their PC. Don't tell me this doesn't happen. I don't want to wade through dozens of emails on my phone to find one or two that I do want to keep on my phone for a few days. I hate clutter, keeping lots of emails jumbled up in one big folder really ticks me off. That's why I hate "unified" inboxes that bring together email, text, facebook, BBM, etc...

The other problem with IMAP is that it still needs some form of connection open to the server, some form of data going back and forth to keep that connection open. This has an adverse effect on data usage as well as battery life.

Totally agree with you. I delete a lot of emails from my Phone there are ones that i read on phone and want them deleted from server too bu then there are a few that i dont need on phone but on my server / gmail or hotmail.

[MobileMadness002]

As something of a BIS and BB neophyte, can someone explain exactly how BIS works and how data can be free and unlimited over BIS worldwide when at the end of the day, the data has to be transmitted over the same licensed spectrum that the carriers had to pay tens of billions of dollars for? Is there something else going on?

The most valuable thing a carrier owns is time per spectrum and they generally charge highly for it, how did it work out that a carrier is willing to give up unlimited time on that spectrum when they could be charging much more for it from non blackberry customers?

I don't understand how it worked out.

The way I understand it is like this. When I am out of the country and say open my Browser, the BB requests a tunnel into the RIM(BB) NOC but this can be handled at ANY point of the communication tunnel. Therefore if I am on ATT at the time, originally from Telus, ATT routes the data to the NOC essentially bypassing Telus completely. Essentially Telus is never aware where I am, which is also a reason that Netflix and such was not availalble for BB users till 10 came about,

Now an issue with email is this. If I open an email with graphics(html) then that data is transfered via standard HTML traffic, not through the NOC itself. So when this data is retreived, the roaming network reports that back to home base. Another reason why WiFI was such a blessing.

I consider this to be fairly accurate, but I am sure that the smarter than me will report any errors if any.

[ssbtech]

Perhaps if you have one email account, battery life and data usage wouldn't be too bad with IMAP, but I have 5. I wonder how much data usage and battery drain I'll see with IMAP keeping 5 connections open.

[BBerryPowerUser]

I'm a Fan of BIS, that's for sure. I like the security and the fact that it's proprietary to RIM.

However, BB 10 is the new age of smartphone, and for that, I have to understand that BIS is going the way of the Dodo with this new platform of Smartphone.

I'm not happy with this, but I'll accept it because RIM has to move forward or be left behind forever. As much as I love my 9780, when it retires, I'll be a happy 10 user. Sans BIS.

'nuff said.

[ssbtech]

I'm not happy with this, but I'll accept it because RIM has to move forward or be left behind forever.

I completely agree that RIM has to move forward. But that doesn't necessarily require leaving behind the foundation of what makes it truly a great business tool.

I would love nothing more in this world than to play Angry Birds on my phone while waiting somewhere for someone or something. But not at the expense of putting up with lackluster email support. And for that, I'll probably keep my 9800. I'm really tempted to go look at the Z10, but I know I'll just end up buying it and be stuck with a frustrating email experience for the next three years.

[br14]

My guess is it was the trade off the carriers insisted upon in order to support BlackBerry 10.

RIM might as have well closed the doors because they're going to **** off countless loyal customers.

BIS is the primary reason I use BlackBerry - and now they've taken it away I might as well have an Android.

[ssbtech]

We really don't know if it was the carriers requesting this or not. I'd imagine the carriers like the data compression as it is less taxing on the network.

I seem to recall that RIM was having issues getting BIS to work on QNX many months ago and that was part of the reason for the delay. Perhaps they simply gave up on it for that reason? Doesn't make sense however if BES10 works OK.

It's too bad there's no BESx for BB10 or I'd set up a little server at home to push out my POP emails and provide me with an SMTP relay.

[br14]

"I seem to recall that RIM was having issues getting BIS to work on QNX many months ago"

Seriously, this has to be nonsense. I'd lay my 35 years of software architecture experience on this being a commercial decision of one kind or another. More than likely BIS is the domain of the old BB OS developers, and the shiny new QNX engineers didn't like the old stuff. My experience is that all technical problems end up being about the people involved.

Same reason Java on the devices was killed. Nothing to do with technology. Everything to do with money.

[anon62607]

The way I understand it is like this. When I am out of the country and say open my Browser, the BB requests a tunnel into the RIM(BB) NOC but this can be handled at ANY point of the communication tunnel. Therefore if I am on ATT at the time, originally from Telus, ATT routes the data to the NOC essentially bypassing Telus completely. Essentially Telus is never aware where I am, which is also a reason that Netflix and such was not availalble for BB users till 10 came about,

Now an issue with email is this. If I open an email with graphics(html) then that data is transfered via standard HTML traffic, not through the NOC itself. So when this data is retreived, the roaming network reports that back to home base. Another reason why WiFI was such a blessing.

I consider this to be fairly accurate, but I am sure that the smarter than me will report any errors if any.

In order for the roaming carrier to even allow the phone on its network at all I think it has to know where the phone came from and also no matter where the data is tunneled, the tower itself, associated fairness algorithms and accounting see the foreign device and do know it is consuming data, I would think.

[mjolnirgs]

I am certainly not playing at your level here with e-mail servers and so forth, so this may be a dumb question.

Since you don't have to deal with BIS at all now, can't you just set procmail to forward on to your phone as soon as it hits your server, the same way it was doing to BIS?

I wish it were that simple. The way BIS works with the legacy BB phones was to use the PIN of the device to push the mail it receives to your *.blackberry.net address, or the mail you configure it to go and get from whatever accounts you have, over the carriers network to the phone using a proprietary protocol. Without BIS, there's no email address for my regular server to send the mail to. I have to set up a new server that will allow the new phones to get the mail using ActiveSync if I want to enjoy the same push speed to the phone. I am not currently aware of any mail server software that supports ActiveSync for free, it's usually a paid for (expensive !) add on.

[mjolnirgs]

If I'm not mistaken BIS only supports a single blackberry.net address per device, right? So that would mean that you're forwarding traffic from potentially several different accounts into a single blackberry.net address, correct? At least for me, that wouldn't be workable. Or do you really run a dedicated email server for just a single email address? (Were you the person who wrote earlier you were using this in your company?)

You are correct, My personal address is forwarded to my BB via BIS and my work mail is handled by BES, all on the same device. Seamlessly. It changes my "from" address depending on whether the email I was replying to was sent to the personal or work e-mail, and does the same based on whether the contact I'm emailing is in the address book on the device. Pure email bliss, and it's worked this way since my first BlackBerry. For me, 2 email accounts is all I need.

How much of a time differential? If it's significant, I'd guess that your IMAP client is not using IMAP IDLE to pick up new messages. Some IMAP clients (and servers) don't support that mode, or it's not enabled by default. So then it would be up to the polling-frequency setting in your client again.
I grant you that IMAP uses some data, but it's orders of magnitude smaller than downloading everything over POP3 or even doing small header or partial mail retrievals by default. (Which is essentially what BIS does anyway, at least on my OS6 device - I can't read a large message without having to hit "continue" "continue" "continue" several times.)

I will admit here I'm nitpicking a bit, it's usually about a minute or so, but IMAP - IDLE has some significant limitations, as the server only informs the client there is mail for the main inbox, so if you have server side filters moving mail to different folders, you have to set up your client software to open another connection to the server, more connections = more empty data packets = more strain on small data plan limits.

While I certainly understand the BIS cost advantages for people in certain places in the world, I also have a fairly big mental "evil list" of all the limitations that BIS imposes that I for one will not miss. Maximum size of messages, slow message retrieval to the device (esp wrt attachments), inability to see full headers on messages for troubleshooting purposes, and a few other things I can't remember right now. Those things are what drove me to install "LogicMail" on my BBOS 6 device, which provides much more sophisticated functionality than the native BB mail client, with the exception of some OS integration aspects.)

Another man's trash is another man's treasure, I've seen those as features that kept data usage low, a fact that is actually getting more important as the monopolies in some countries like Canada keep jacking data rates sky high. The download more feature of big mails is especially handy as you can avoid downloading all the idiotic non legally binding email disclaimers that get attached to long mail threads.

Ah well now you've piqued my curiosity.

sometimes I hit send before I should..

[mjolnirgs]

I liked the fact that BIS held images. Too often people have company logos and other crap images in their emails and I don't want or need to see it every time. Less crap for me to look at, less crap wasting my data.

How do you turn a tool into a toy? Easy: Take away BIS. <<< @ssbtech this is the best summary of how I feel that I've seen anywhere.

[ssbtech]

How do you turn a tool into a toy? Easy: Take away BIS. <<< @ssbtech this is the best summary of how I feel that I've seen anywhere.

Look at it this way - at least BIS for OS7 isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Now if only I could get a new 9810 I'd be a happy camper.

[Omnitech]

IMAP is just not a reasonable replacement for BIS.

IMAP:
If you've deleted a message on your phone, it deletes it from the server on the next sync.

That is not an IMAP requirement, it is MUA (email client) specific.

MOST desktop IMAP clients don't even delete immediately by default, they move it to a trash folder and then you decide how you want to manage that folder. "Immediate purge" is one option but it's not the only option. Here is how Thunderbird does it: Deleting messages in IMAP accounts - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

The beauty of IMAP is that you can use half a dozen devices and they can all see the same exact message list. (With some limits - some mobile devices don't show folders or limit folders by default for resource-consumption reasons, for example. But POP has its own resource-utilization issues.) Managing POP is often a hassle because you have to keep track of where you've downloaded messages, you have to be careful of duplicates, and when you send a message, the only way to keep a copy on a client that didn't actually send the message is CC or BCC it to yourself and that's a major kluge and hassle in and of itself.

People have different requirements and while some people have systems that work for them with POP, others hate it.

The other problem with IMAP is that it still needs some form of connection open to the server, some form of data going back and forth to keep that connection open. This has an adverse effect on data usage as well as battery life.

The data exchanged is microscopic. If both sides support IMAP IDLE, it barely sends anything, only a tiny "keepalive" as infrequently as once every 30 mins or so. There are additional extensions for IMAP being worked-on right now that further improve data and connection efficiency for mobile devices. Yahoo reputedly supports some of these (I believe an Oracle-proposed group of enhancements sometimes referred to as "P-IMAP") and Fastmail supports some of the enhancements sometimes referred to as the "Lemonade" set of efficiency improvements. I'm curious what capabilities Blackberry supports in its native IMAP implementation - if they had the foresight to support those newer IMAP extensions, I wouldn't be surprised if that could make IMAP email on BB10 almost as efficient as BIS, but without the BIS problems.

(Note: the issues that affect battery life on a mobile device using email are not necessarily just "data size" related. One issue has to do with just waking-up the data link periodically, which uses battery even if you send/receive almost nothing. If I'm not mistaken some of these newer IMAP extensions have specific mechanisms to improve that.)

FWIW - data compression is also possible on non-BIS email. IE there is a standard data-compression mechanism for IMAP that was published in 2007. Here is the standards document: RFC 4978 - The IMAP COMPRESS Extension

EAS also has compression mechanisms built in to it.

[Omnitech]

We really don't know if it was the carriers requesting this or not. I'd imagine the carriers like the data compression as it is less taxing on the network.

The vast majority of the data that traverses the network these days is not even compressible - ie 90% or more of file attachments (which I would guess are the majority of data bytes sent via email these days) are already compressed, so you can't compress them much if at all. If you're websurfing, all the images and videos - once again the majority of the data in most webpages - are already compressed. So that leaves email text and webpage markup. (unless based on what MobileMadness002 wrote, web traffic just bypasses the BIS network anyway)

It's too bad there's no BESx for BB10 or I'd set up a little server at home to push out my POP emails and provide me with an SMTP relay.

It would be far simpler and cheaper to simply pay a MS Exchange email hosting company a few dollars a month, and it would provide you with 10x the functionality you have now. Have you ever actually administered a MS Exchange server? Not a trivial undertaking, especially if something goes wrong and you have to dig into it.

BB's official response to the lack of BESx for BB10 is that they have switched to a per-user licensing model, where it's only about $99 per user now rather than having to pay a lot of money for a server license. I don't know what the minimum user count is but even if it is 5 users that would be wayyyy cheaper than licensing/operating a dedicated email server running Exchange and BES10.

Same reason Java on the devices was killed. Nothing to do with technology. Everything to do with money.

While you made a good point re: personalities and so on having a lot to do with what stays or goes, I'd beg to differ on the Java thing.

I'd be willing to bet that the JavaME environment that RIM has historically used is just too inefficient and hamstrung to be useful any more. No one ever wrote anything in Java because it gave the best performance.

Lastly - BB10 still has Java actually - in a way - because Android's central VM (called Dalvik) is some sort of optimized runtime that uses code converted from Java-compiled apps to Dalvik-compiled apps. (Or something like that. I'm not a programmer.)