We implemented a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) at work last week. I was afraid it would be overly complicated, but it wasn’t that bad, and we seem to have it running smoothly now. We’re running it on top of Lotus Domino. I’ve found that the documentation for BES is OK, but if you hit a snag, you’re going to need to head out on the internet and do some searching. The best place to find BES information seems to be the BES Admin Corner at BlackBerryForums.com.
CrackBerry.com has some useful stuff in their forums, too. For Domino-specific information, I’ve found besdomino.blogspot.com and notesberry.org useful.
I’ve been almost completely ignorant of the BlackBerry platform until now. I’ve got plenty of experience with Windows Mobile and Palm, going back several years, but I just never had occasion to pick up a BlackBerry. It turns out that they work pretty well! We won’t get to keep one in the IT department, unfortunately. We’ve just got one to use for testing that we’ll have to give back at some point. I looked into picking one up myself, but I don’t see any way to do that (and hook it up to the BES) for less that $50 per month, and that’s a bit much. I guess I should be glad that the company’s not making me carry around a BlackBerry 24×7, but it does seem like it would be a useful thing to have.
For now, I can still check my e-mail on my Moto SLVR via RemoMail, which I’ve blogged about before. And when I’m near a wifi access point, I can always use my iPod Touch.