This morning we revisited a topic we've discussed once or twice over the last few weeks, and that's unlimited data plans, and specifically talk in the context of value added data services. During the last few weeks all the major carriers in the United States have unveiled unlimited voice and data plans. Yet, as one person commented to me, all those plans exclude Blackberry. The BlackBerry service is priced separately and sometimes at much higher prices than raw data. Here in Canada, for example, Rogers charges $65 for 25Mb of data on Blackberry, despite the fact that they have a $65 for 1G of raw data plan available. Verizon charges by the number of emails received. AT&T and Sprint, however, have adopted an unmetered approach, simply charging for BlackBerry service.
We discussed whether this was a sustainable model… and the consensus is no. How long until RIM is affected by it, however, was unclear.
Our other topic was the spate of rumors over the weekend, starting with a blog post by Nick Carr, that Microsoft would announce this week that they're going to make online versions of the Office applications available. A lot of people, however, were disappointed when Gates announced hosted versions of Sharepoint and Exchange in his keynote this morning at the Sharepoint conference. Microsoft's Online Services now includes Office Communication Server, Sharepoint and Exchange, and it's targeted at small, medium and large businesses.
Two questions the group considered — is there really a threat from Google at this point? And is this enough to blunt that threat?
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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The new updates to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry device software are meant to improve messaging and productivity tools on BlackBerry smartphones. One of the updates is the ability to download and edit Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents on the smartphones / BlackBerry.
Hi Alec,
I have found WiFi to be extremely useful for BlackBerry e-mail on my Curve 8320. All e-mail from my main e-mail address is sent to multiple e-mail addresses (ISPs, phones, Gmail, etc.), and I'm on RIM's BIS system, not BES.
Sometimes T-Mobile and sometimes BlackBerry have problems. The BlackBerry problems are well known; the T-Mobile problems in the Washington, D.C. area aren't much discussed, but too often I just won't get e-mail and/or I can't browse. I don't know why; it just happens.
However, because a copy of my e-mail is sent to Gmail, I just use WiFi on the Curve and the Gmail client to view messages when I'm not near a computer. So if T-Mobile or BlackBerry fail, I'm still able to see e-mail on my Curve (and my e-mail hosting company, Fastmail.fm, is quite reliable).
Of course, getting e-mail as well as browsing the Web is typically much faster using WiFi on the Curve than EDGE. Also, UMA calls are usually much clearer over WiFi than EDGE.
Once you have a phone with WiFi, you don't want to do without it.