BlackBerry cloud services go live on Office 365
Will bundling save Canadian’s bacon?
Ensure Ease of Recovery with Asigra’s Agentless Software
After three months of beta testing, RIM has confirmed that its BlackBerry Business Cloud Services have gone live on Microsoft’s Office 365.
The free download allows wireless synching of RIM devices with Exchange Online, and includes BlackBerry Balance, which allows personal and business content on the same handset, but blocks the transfer of data from business applications via copy and pasting, and allows the remote wiping of business data while leaving personal information intact.
“Microsoft’s partnership with RIM exemplifies our commitment to providing customers with the best productivity experience across the PC, browser and phone,” said Julia White, senior director of Microsoft's Exchange product management group, in a statement.
The tools come with a central web-management console for IT administrators, whereby they can set policies over a range of devices or on individual handsets, and reset password and remotely lock down lost systems.
“This new cloud-based option allows customers to cost-effectively support mobility across their organizations and easily manage and secure their BlackBerry deployments,” said Alan Panezic, RIM's vice president for enterprise product management and marketing. “We continue to build upon the end-to-end BlackBerry solution for our business and government customers with both on-premise and cloud-based solutions.” ®
COMMENTS
BLACKBERRY CLOUD SERVICES - 'Cumulus Congestus'
We had a number of actions prepared to further this weekend:
1) script ready to edit mailbox calendar entries slightly
2) Prepared to use mfcmapi to check calendar items for missing GOID value
3) testing blackberry desktop sync and device re-set options
Whilst testing yesterday morning my client reported they had spoken to O2 their UK mobile network provider, ordered iPhone's to replace blackberry handsets and as a result renewed their contract, they were now saving hundreds of pounds a month on BES data costs - £28 per device to be exact.
Whilst i would have proceeded with all courses of action and more if necessary to get the clients blackberry handheld's synced and am now glad i can just bide time until the iPhones arrive.
As Microsoft managed the BES infrastructure for BPOS and it worked i stupidly didn’t opt to fully test the Blackberry Cloud Services integration with office 365 - to be honest we do not have a spare BES enabled handset - who does at £28 per month on top of any tariff costs.
So now my client is now saving money and i will be able to spend more time with my family this weekend.
Good luck to others encountering internal Development task number: 2407350 and good luck to others bridging from Microsoft to blackberry support. I have spoken to no end of different support individuals. All have been competent in their own right but the lack of cohesion between those conversations and the actual fact collection from RIM has been dis-jointed to say the least.
Perhaps the fact our imported PST's came from exchange 2003, BES 4.1 on premise affected the GOID entry in mailboxes? or perhaps not - but if the internal development team hide behind support front men we wonder how are they going to solve the problem..
Existing calendar events do not sync to devices after activation
Existing calendar events do not sync to devices after activation. So if you want your users to have a mobile calendar and you were planning to use this service - wait.
Expect to be told to manually edit - we have found re-create the only option - all calendar entries if you want them to show on users handhelds - ho many entries does your calendar have?
Office365 Mobile support team are pushing the issue onto RIM who are on nigh impossible to speak to without an open ticket less you go through Office 365 support - then RIM will close your ticket after advising you "This is a known issue" (Development task number: 2407350) I have had 3 tickets for this issue thus far.
Why is this out of BETA?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
