[Clinto]

Inichols, YOU ARE A CRACKBERRY GENIUS!!!!

Thanks brotha! That was an amazing amount of time, effort and "boiling down" you did for me/us. Excellent Work!!

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

What a joke of a company. Why would they not upgrade? My understanding is that it is low cost or free. It's secure and supports multiple platforms.

[DocDRM]

Thunderbuck, I didn't think I was being "unreasonable". I'm looking for a solution as to how to sell them on upgrading. From the research that I did, BB makes it sound like it's a free upgrade. On top of that BB still has the best encryption of any platform (already proved for BB10) so that alone would be a selling point for an insurance company that holds so many people's Driver's license #'s, Social Sec #'s and addresses. I would think they'd stay with BlackBerry. Not just because I want them to, but because it's a good business decision.

Anybody else have any ideas on how support me?

Might I recommend a round of golf with someone who buys more expensive suits than you?

It might take letting the launch happen, get phones on the street, get a personal one or one for a family member, THEN play that round I mentioned.

[Clinto]

Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes, yeah it does suck... But we are an insurance company and a lot of what we do is pay claims for when people get sued. Or we prevent a claim from happening by winning a law suit. So when it comes to ensuring none of our info gets in the wrong hands, via emails sent from a phone and potentially getting sued for it... If they aren't 100% positive, it's 100% safe, then the answer is a simple NO. Or.. if they think it will needlessly cost thousands with no "Return On Investment".. Then again.. the simple answer is NO..

So that is what we are here to do.. Figure out how to put my company or anybody else's company (yes there are a lot more people out there in my shoes) at rest and show them the advantages of BB10.

I'll gladly be the guinea pig and see how it goes.. Or is a better analogy a moth to the flame?

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes, yeah it does suck... But we are an insurance company and a lot of what we do is pay claims for when people get sued. Or we prevent a claim from happening by winning a law suit. So when it comes to ensuring none of our info gets in the wrong hands, via emails sent from a phone and potentially getting sued for it... If they aren't 100% positive, it's 100% safe, then the answer is a simple NO. Or.. if they think it will needlessly cost thousands with no "Return On Investment".. Then again.. the simple answer is NO..

So that is what we are here to do.. Figure out how to put my company or anybody else's company (yes there are a lot more people out there in my shoes) at rest and show them the advantages of BB10.

I'll gladly be the guinea pig and see how it goes.. Or is a better analogy a moth to the flame?

It's not a guinea pig or a moth. BES 10 is already business tested. I would put it more along the lines of "potential satisfied customer"

[westcoastit]

What a joke of a company. Why would they not upgrade? My understanding is that it is low cost or free. It's secure and supports multiple platforms.

While BES10 licensing itself is cheap, that is hardly the only cost of spinning up a new server. You have hardware costs, OS and user licensing costs, integration costs, and ongoing administration overhead.

If it were as simple as upgrading BES5 to a new version that could support both legacy BB devices as well as the new products this wouldn't be such a concern, but when you have to go through all of the above to support a handful of early adopters the cost per user is extraordinarily high.

[brmiller1976]

So very few will be hanging on to their old BBs waiting for BB10. Most will be moving to iOS/Android instead. You can only be patient for so long... to wait another 7+ months is tough to do when you've been using a dated phone for years.

If your firm isn't upgrading to ActiveSync for several months, then how can iOS or Android users use your corporate network?

The whole point of BB10 was to eliminate the need for a BES, and transform BES into a separate service to manage multiple operating systems and devices (including Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BB10) from one dashboard.

If your company is supporting iOS and Android today, it's doubtlessly doing it through Exchange, which means that a BB10 will work just fine.

ActiveSync is the standard across ALL devices now, including BB10. That makes it EASIER to introduce BB10, both as corporate and BYOD devices.

[Clinto]

Alright!! I heard back from BlackBerry. After correspondance with them I now feel better. Truth be told.. I actually felt much better first after hearing from all of the excellent responses from this very fine Crackberry community.
A special thanks goes out to Sith_Apprentice, he helped me quite a bit and gave me much of his precious time and first hand knowledge of BES10.

You can tell by the email from BlackBerry's Manager of Enterprise Relations that he really does care about his job and he really does want to see us succeed with BlackBerry. I had a nice time email chatting with him.
I do think that I have a very good shot at getting my precious Z 10 at launch now. And I will urge others in my company to do the same.

In a nutshell what I learned is this: Upgrading to BES10 "software" is free. Upgrading the license is free for now. Everything for now is from BlackBerry is FREE to upgrade the BES "Software". So what's the catch?? You need a whole computer/"console"/"hardware" to run BES10. Funding the console is not free.. This console will run right beside the old console already running our BES 5. Also BES 10 isn't quite "fully baked" quite yet. It's pretty much done, but the full release of BES10 will be in May. When it's fully released, it will run BES10 and 5 in one console along with managing over Apple & Android devices too. I am turning all of this in to my I.T. Manager and will emphasize the effort I put into it and also how easy it appears to be able to use BES10. What I.T. dept doesn't have 12 old computers laying around anyway to facilitate BES10; right??
And if that doesn't work for your corporate office, Active Sync will also work let you recieve work email, PIM and calendar.

I sincerely hope that this thread helps you obtain a BB10 Device at Launch Time to use with your company.

Here's to the greatest tech comeback story of all time! Go BlackBerry!!!!!

This is what BlackBerry's manager of enterprise relations had to say: (Note, the newest email is on top and the OLDEST/FIRST EMAIL IS AT THE BOTTOM) So seriously start at the bottom and work your way up..


you're going to love it when you are!
Have a great weekend.
A


Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: Clinton
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 5:08 PM
To: Andy "Blank"
Subject: RE: "Blank" Insurance Company - 200 Enterprise Connected Employees - Need Help Convincing V.P. To Stay With BlackBerry and Upgrade To BES BB10


Sounds Good Andy!

I hope very soon to be using the same email signature!

Clint


-----Original Message-----
From: Andy B**** [mailto:ab
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 2:59 PM
To: Clinton
Subject: Re: "Blank" Insurance Company - 200 Enterprise Connected Employees - Need Help Convincing V.P. To Stay With BlackBerry and Upgrade To BES BB10

One other thing to note is that you don't absolutely *require* BES 10 to get your corporate email on BB10. You can connect directly via Active Sync ; you won't get full manageability or corporate features, but you'll still have mail, calendar, and PIM.
A




Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: Andy
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 4:35 PM
To: Clint
Subject: RE: Insurance Company - 200 Enterprise Connected Employees - Need Help Convincing V.P. To Stay With BlackBerry and Upgrade To BES BB10


Hey Clint,
Yep, that’s right.
You can get the software and SRP for free right now from the links I sent you. Licenses for any existing BlackBerry devices can be upgraded to BlackBerry 10 licenses for free (until the end of December 2013). What you’ll still need to pay for are licenses for non-BlackBerry devices that you want to manage with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (plus the hardware, etc). So, from our side, a net-zero cost to move existing BlackBerry users to BlackBerry 10.
Hope this helps,
-A




From: Clinton B [mailto:cb
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 4:21 PM
To: Andy B
Subject: RE: Insurance Company - 200 Enterprise Connected Employees - Need Help Convincing V.P. To Stay With BlackBerry and Upgrade To BES BB10

Hi Andy,

Thanks very much for the informative email. We currently have around 100 employees that use their own device. However we have 180 agents total and easily another 30 to 40 people on call with their devices.. field underwriters, claims adjusters, managers, travelling I.T. personnel etc.. We used to be exclusively BlackBerry. But in 2011, they decided to allow Android and Apple. If BB10 is as good I think it is along with the superior security and after you release your next iteration of the 10” Playbook, I could see us going back to all BlackBerry in the near future.

So I was really surprised when our I.T. dept manager said he has no plans on upgrading to BB10.

I will pass this info over to our director of I.T. "Blankety-Blank". I will hope that this is enough to convince him to allow BB10 when you launch it. Before I pass it over to him, I do have one more questions though. If I read it correctly it sounds like really the only additional cost we’ll have is in the additional hardware to support the BES 10. Is that correct?

Thanks A Lot,

Clint

From: Andy [mailto:ab
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 1:44 PM
To: Clinton
Subject: RE: Blank Insurance Company - 200 Enterprise Connected Employees - Need Help Convincing V.P. To Stay With BlackBerry and Upgrade To BES BB10

Hi Clint,
Thanks for your email, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
I see that Blank Insurance Company has an Advantage level Support Contract with us, and I have the names of some of your BlackBerry Enterprise Server Admins, who I’m happy to chat with.

To answer your questions, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has just been released to support our new BlackBerry 10 devices and PlayBook tablets, as well as provide a single console for managing BlackBerry, Android, and iOS devices (link to Press Release<http://press.rim.com/newsroom/press/2013/blackberry-enterprise-service-10-now-available-for-download.html>).
A trial copy of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 is available, and this includes 60-day temporary licenses to manage both BlackBerry 10 and Android/iOS devices (link<http://www.blackberry.com/bes10>).
You can upgrade any of your existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server CALs to BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 CALs for free, via our License Trade Up Program (link<http://www.blackberry.com/licensetradeup>). To be clear, this is for BlackBerry OS to BlackBerry 10 swaps. You will need to purchase additional licenses to support Android or iOS devices.

You will need to install BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 on its own hardware, leaving your existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5x on its own server. You will be able to manage ALL devices in your domain, however, from a single BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 console. The messaging architecture of BES5 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 is sufficiently different that this is a current requirement (in an Exchange environment, BBOS devices leverage MAPI while BlackBerry 10 leverages Active Sync).

BlackBerry 10 software is built to run on the new hardware, and isn’t backwards compatible with our BBOS, java-based devices. This is an entirely new platform.

As for training, your BlackBerry Enterprise Server Admins have access to online training via our BlackBerry Expert Support Center (BlackBerry.com/besc), but there is a fair amount of information and training available at the BlackBerry 10 Ready site (link<http://ca.blackberry.com/business/blackberry-10-ready.html>). BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 is a different product than BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, to be sure, but your Admins should find it familiar and easy to work with. And if they have any questions or hit any snags along the way, they can always call us for help.

I hope this answers your questions. We’re super excited about BlackBerry 10, and I’m happy to see that you are too. I’m assuming you’ve been there already, but there are some cool videos and demos of our new BlackBerry on our YouTube channel to keep you excited for our big launch (http://www.youtube.com/user/BlackBerry).

I’m happy to chat more, if you like. My contact info is below.

All the best.
-Andy


__________________________________________________ ______

[BBM icon 1]

Andy "Blank"
Manager, Enterprise Support Relations
BlackBerry Premier Support
Research In Motion Limited
Phone: 902.9**.**** (Reach Me Anywhere)
Email a*****@rim.com

[kfh227]

YOu work for a company that actually wants to make money. $200 here, $400 there is $100,000 at the end of the year. To the people that own the business, these are very real numbers.

[lnichols]

We're not talking old computers lying around to support this, they have to be able to run Windows Server, and you need Windows Server licence. I think RIM should be working on making a BES10 appliance that uses ARM processors and runs on BB10. Windows is a resource hog and BES running BB10 would be able to run on much lower grade hardware.

[independentvolume]

My company is doing the same OP. I was going to get a BB10 and keep my windows phone for personal use. Looks like I'll just be sticking with WP for now since I'm pretty invested in that ecosystem. Maybe down the line things will change but I don't see it happening soon.

[Clinto]

Excellent point Inichols about having the right hardware to run Windows and BES.

I have to say, I really am surprised that RIM would shoot themselves in the foot like this. Thorstein has been so proactive with everything else. He pushed off the release date to get BB10 fully baked, get a higher app count, get it security tested... And considering that RIM "was" known for owning the enterprise market, it seems like an enormous oversight on their part to botch the release of BES 10 so badly. As it's really not going to be ready until May. And in the interrim, there's nothing but confusion as companies just like my mine just won't bother with it.

But in RIM's defense, at least we can connect to a BB10 phone via Active Sync. But I just don't think my corp office will allow that.

I wonder how many sales they are going to lose due to this issue. Oh... The frustration...

[Ray III]

Why don't you just ask them if they will connect you through ActiveSync, or just wait until May? It's a phone for pete's sake, all other phones are not going to stop working just because BB10 came out.

As others have implied here, having a job is better than having the latest fad.

[independentvolume]

Excellent point Inichols about having the right hardware to run Windows and BES.

I have to say, I really am surprised that RIM would shoot themselves in the foot like this. Thorstein has been so proactive with everything else. He pushed off the release date to get BB10 fully baked, get a higher app count, get it security tested... And considering that RIM "was" known for owning the enterprise market, it seems like an enormous oversight on their part to botch the release of BES 10 so badly. As it's really not going to be ready until May. And in the interrim, there's nothing but confusion as companies just like my mine just won't bother with it.

But in RIM's defense, at least we can connect to a BB10 phone via Active Sync. But I just don't think my corp office will allow that.

I wonder how many sales they are going to lose due to this issue. Oh... The frustration...

Integration will happen, but it will take time. A lot of people are expecting to wake up the day after BB10 releases and see 2008 all over again. This is not going to happen. If RIM is going to succeed in enterprise it will do so chipping away a little at a time and will take years. I see RIM and Microsoft slowly rising from the ashes in the long run. Everyone will look back and laugh at all of these current day articles trying to claim RIM and WP dead on arrival. Apple is chipping away at decline while Google is starting to rope in it's "open" system. A year or so from now when WP and BB10 have all the features+ of ios and android is when the wave will really start. Apple seems determined to use the if it isn't broke approach and that's suicide in tech. As for Android, you can only put so many layers of lipstick on a pig.

[Clinto]

I don't think there's any fear of losing my job RayIII. All I'm doing is gathering as much info as I can. I will then take that info to the manager of I.T. and try to convince him to go with BB10.

Here's how it will play out:
They've given it minimal effort to see if they can hook up to BB10. All they've seen is it appears to be a pain in the @ss. So they said no. I will either stop by or call the I.T. manager. (yes we can do that in our company). I will give him the information that I learned here over the last couple of days and see if he understands how easy it is to hook up.

I then have 3 options.. He says, yes Clint I think you're right, lets move forward with BES 10. At which point I win and so does RIM and so does my company. Or... he says.. Clint, we've looked into this and are fully aware of how it works. Thank you for your input, but we will let you know when WE will allow YOU to purchase and connect with BB10. And then I say.. Okay, "Blank" I understand.. how about Active Sync? Then.. he either tells me okay, because that's how they connect to Apple or Android... Or he says nice try.. Don't call us.. We'll call you..


End of story.. No dramatic ending here luckily. I'll just see what they say. No harm in taking 5 to 10 minutes of the I.T. manager's time for the sake of possibly improving our mobile security.

[southlander]

Thunderbuck, I didn't think I was being "unreasonable". I'm looking for a solution as to how to sell them on upgrading. From the research that I did, BB makes it sound like it's a free upgrade. On top of that BB still has the best encryption of any platform (already proved for BB10) so that alone would be a selling point for an insurance company that holds so many people's Driver's license #'s, Social Sec #'s and addresses. I would think they'd stay with BlackBerry. Not just because I want them to, but because it's a good business decision.

Anybody else have any ideas on how support me?

The best time to sell them on it is perhaps after the launch. What you are probably seeing now is reluctance on their part to commit to anything new *until* RIM shows some momentum in growth again.

[Thunderbuck]

A lesson in modern IT; These days any company of the size described by the OP will have most servers virtualized. That means building a new server does not entail any hardware at all (to be fair, it could require additional disk space and memory if the virtual host and Storage Area Network [SAN] are nearly full). The Windows Server licensing is very likely Enterprise. Meaning putting up an additional server doesn't require Microsoft licenses to be purchased. The base server architecture is already in a template. So, building a plain vanilla server as needed for BES10 would require about 20 minutes of a mid-level IT tech's time. Not nothing but, now a huge investment either.

I build VMs for a living, and my employer does have an Enterprise agreement. An additional Windows Server is an addirional license, and this probably represents the biggest expense in making this move.

And, yes, even if it IS cheaper than a physical machine, most shops operate under resource constraints (i.e., storage/processor resources already maxed-out).

[Clinto]

Thunderbuck, how much do you think that additional Windows Server License costs?

[berklon]

If your firm isn't upgrading to ActiveSync for several months, then how can iOS or Android users use your corporate network?

The whole point of BB10 was to eliminate the need for a BES, and transform BES into a separate service to manage multiple operating systems and devices (including Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BB10) from one dashboard.

If your company is supporting iOS and Android today, it's doubtlessly doing it through Exchange, which means that a BB10 will work just fine.

ActiveSync is the standard across ALL devices now, including BB10. That makes it EASIER to introduce BB10, both as corporate and BYOD devices.

My firm isn't currently using Exchange - we're on Notes Domino.

So right now it's BES for BB7 and earlier devices (shrinking at an alarming rate), and Good for iOS/Android.

We're moving to Exchange in late summer (at the earliest) at which time ActiveSync will be used for BB10 devices.
In the meantime our users are told NOT to purchase a BB10 device as they won't be able to use our network.

By the time Exchange/ActiveSync is in place, our BB userbase will represent only a tiny portion of our 130,000 users.

[Clinto]

I just about spit out my coffee! 130,000 device users?? Holy $hit!
No wonder why RIM didn't get back to me for a whole 24 hours (which really isn't that bad). My 200 users vs.your 130,000 is almost laughable..

[sinsin07]

snip...
PS: It's not cool for a user to directly go to a vendor. You stand a chance of developing a reputation as a royal PITA.

LOL There's nothing more annoying then users trying to influence IT. That's how we ended up with BYOD in the first place.

[revision78]

I know this topic is dated, but I couldn't help but to respond. As an IT Director for a large(ish) company in the Fortune 500 I can help lay out why IT organizations have no urge to upgrade if they're in line with our thinking. While it is correct that as a BES5 organization we can upgrade to 10 by merely spinning up another server and installing it, and then migrating blocks of licenses at a time because you have to do a 1 to 1 conversions. Here is where the problem comes in. For the past 5 or so years that Android and Apple have been taking market share away, our BES user counts have reflected it. We held out against ActiveSync as long as possible but to give you an idea, our 500+ BES users dropped all the way down to under 240. Meanwhile, our ActiveSync user connection counts went from maybe 30 back in 2008 to over 3500 now, or 7 times what our BES counts ever were. To be able to control all the mobile devices in our org we would then incur the cost of licensing for all those ActiveSync devices. We can already control the devices being lost; ActiveSync allows you to wipe the device no problem, it will reset an iPhone back to factory default without issue. If an Android user is using TouchDown it will wipe out their touchdown, or if they use the built-in version it will wipe their phone. We wanted to keep BES around and implement it with what's left of the BB population we have and control the Android and iPhones, the problem is we're sitting on over 300 unused BES licenses and people aren't buying BBs here for personal devices and RIM doesn't offer the ability to trade-up 1 to 1 on old BES licenses to the ActiveSync ones. They don't even offer you to be able to convert 100 old unused but maintenance covered licenses for a single ActiveSync one. We had users come up to us wanting to know when they could get the 10, get it whenever you want, ActiveSync works just fine on them but I'm not going to harvest resources for a 10% and shrinking percentage of my user-base, that's fiscally irresponsible.

You have to remember that a lot of us loved BB for so long, the problem is that things changed while they were sleeping and they and their loyalists unfortunately have to see understand the landscape is different now. Hopefully that helps shine a light but the honest truth is if i could have put my 300 unused BB licenses towards making a dent in the purchase of the other 3200 ActiveSync licenses I would, but despite multiple phone calls with reps and my vendors, that's not an option thereby lending RIM no longer an option for me to take seriously. They should have been proactive in maintaining customers, our board and exec management were told already though that we will not be upgrading the BES server to 10 and that those who wished to BYOD a BB10 device will use ActiveSync and our tools that we have already put in place there. Done deal, they officially died in this organization and we're one of many organization who have been coming to the same conclusion over the past couple years.

[Aljean Thein]

50th

Posted via CB10

[a1s2d3f4g5]

Revision 78 I hope you will send those comments to blackberry

Posted via CB10

[fedakd]

Just curious, how did you find this thread? You could have started a new topic, but went "searching". Please advise us why you felt it necessary to reply to a thread over 4 months old?

BES will never lose its stronghold in the enterprise space. Why? One word: SECURITY

It's no coincidence that BlackBerry is used in over 90% of Fortune 500 companies. Can you imagine being an IT Security Director and have a major security breach infiltrate your company? Imagine all this happening after you knowingly left the most secure MDM platform from a company with unparalleled security? I can't, nor would I want that hanging over my head; it's an accident waiting to happen. That's also irresponsible.

I won't get into the disadvantages of typing up e-mails or conducting business using an iPhone or Android vs. a BlackBerry. There is a clear distinction. Any working professional knows that a BlackBerry is the best device for communication. Bar none, end of story.

I know this topic is dated, but I couldn't help but to respond. As an IT Director for a large(ish) company in the Fortune 500 I can help lay out why IT organizations have no urge to upgrade if they're in line with our thinking. While it is correct that as a BES5 organization we can upgrade to 10 by merely spinning up another server and installing it, and then migrating blocks of licenses at a time because you have to do a 1 to 1 conversions. Here is where the problem comes in. For the past 5 or so years that Android and Apple have been taking market share away, our BES user counts have reflected it. We held out against ActiveSync as long as possible but to give you an idea, our 500+ BES users dropped all the way down to under 240. Meanwhile, our ActiveSync user connection counts went from maybe 30 back in 2008 to over 3500 now, or 7 times what our BES counts ever were. To be able to control all the mobile devices in our org we would then incur the cost of licensing for all those ActiveSync devices. We can already control the devices being lost; ActiveSync allows you to wipe the device no problem, it will reset an iPhone back to factory default without issue. If an Android user is using TouchDown it will wipe out their touchdown, or if they use the built-in version it will wipe their phone. We wanted to keep BES around and implement it with what's left of the BB population we have and control the Android and iPhones, the problem is we're sitting on over 300 unused BES licenses and people aren't buying BBs here for personal devices and RIM doesn't offer the ability to trade-up 1 to 1 on old BES licenses to the ActiveSync ones. They don't even offer you to be able to convert 100 old unused but maintenance covered licenses for a single ActiveSync one. We had users come up to us wanting to know when they could get the 10, get it whenever you want, ActiveSync works just fine on them but I'm not going to harvest resources for a 10% and shrinking percentage of my user-base, that's fiscally irresponsible.

You have to remember that a lot of us loved BB for so long, the problem is that things changed while they were sleeping and they and their loyalists unfortunately have to see understand the landscape is different now. Hopefully that helps shine a light but the honest truth is if i could have put my 300 unused BB licenses towards making a dent in the purchase of the other 3200 ActiveSync licenses I would, but despite multiple phone calls with reps and my vendors, that's not an option thereby lending RIM no longer an option for me to take seriously. They should have been proactive in maintaining customers, our board and exec management were told already though that we will not be upgrading the BES server to 10 and that those who wished to BYOD a BB10 device will use ActiveSync and our tools that we have already put in place there. Done deal, they officially died in this organization and we're one of many organization who have been coming to the same conclusion over the past couple years.