Difference between BES and IMAP?

My wife is about to get her first blackberry through Verizon. She's in school and they have access to a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). Verizon has a personal email and web option for $29.99 that includes IMAP support and specifically says that it is not compatible with BES. They have another option, the "Blackberry Solution Unlimited Data Usage," which is $44.99 and while not explicitly stated on their website, I assume this is to the BES option. Her school email also supports IMAP email.

Can someone explain the difference between the two options? I'm just trying to figure out if she will even notice the difference. Verizon says her mail would be "pushed" from an IMAP account but is it as instantaneous as the BES? What about syncing with her calendar?

Lastly, can Verizon even tell if she's using a BES? I think that if you buy web access from Verizon, they shouldn't be able to tell you what sites or servers you're allowed to connect to, but no one asked me.

Thanks in advance.

Depends on the school. Is she a teacher or student? If the school has a BES for employees, she'll need the BES. However, if she is a student, she can probably still get it pushed through the BIS.

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-101...ats-difference

With BES she can sync her contacts and calendar wirelessly in real time. You cannot do that with BIS.I have been on both and I prefer BES over BIS any day!

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IMAP would be for Outlook. So it's BIS vs. BES on the berry and BES is hand down ten times better.

Except that you would then have an IT policy on the blackberry, and every time you browsed the web, it would go through the school's servers. I don't recomend putting personal Blackberries on BES unless absolutely necessary. The BES has complete control of the Blackberry. Just my opinion.

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