Bus error: Jake Billo’s weblog

Just before heading into my marketing exam this evening, I was checking Crackberry and HowardForums for the usual selection of news. What I found was actually an interesting exercise in branding, using the time-honoured technique of showing us an attractive girl in underwear.

Virgin Mobile Canada apparently has launched the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 on their service, which I believe is a first for a Canadian MVNO; generally only the non-virtual carriers in North America have established relationships with RIM for devices and services. In Canada, Virgin is CDMA and runs off the Bell infrastructure - so if you get decent Bell coverage in your area, service will be about the same quality.

The thing that all the fanboys on HoFo seem to be noticing is the attractive female used in the promotional video. I believe one poster later in the thread described the model as ‘hott’, which leads me to believe he drooled on his keyboard during the video and it now duplicates keystrokes.

The primary focus of the thread and the Crackberry article (the hawt girl, in case you haven’t followed) is followed closely by an interestingly decent offer. A three year contract gets you a $0 device and a 8GB microSD card; plans start at $25 for voice and $30 for unlimited email/Web/IM, with explicit support for Windows Live Messenger and Facebook integration. Virgin also doesn’t charge for system access fees or incoming text messages at present, so consider that a $6.95 discount per month.

(There are also several other data packages available, including the traditional $15 unlimited email/BlackBerry Messenger plan. Another interesting plan seems to be the $45 email, web, text messaging, IM, voicemail and call display addon for the people who can’t get enough SMS action.)

What’s even more interesting about this $30 plan? BES access appears to be is enabled. That’s right; the BlackBerry informational page notes that unlimited access to enterprise email is included:

Enterprise email
Our BlackBerry plans give you unlimited access to enterprise email if you:

• Use the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server in your organization
• Have a client access license

You get:

• Secure access to corporate email
• Corporate data access
• Wireless email and calendar synchronization
• Remote address lookup

I’ve written into the Virgin support team to confirm that BES is activated on their standard packages. I’ve also asked if the $15 plan includes BES support as well, and will update this post with my findings the answer is yes, as confirmed by Chris below.

If Since BES support is present, this would makes Virgin’s offering the only unlimited package in Canada with enterprise support. While this news isn’t quite the shakeup of a new wireless entrant, Virgin now would be my top pick for a CDMA provider over Telus or Bell.

Edit: Cleaned up some grammar.
Edit 2: Updated with confirmation of BES inclusion.

A puzzling problem lately arose when I was asked (through our consulting business) to find a better contacts, calendar and task synchronization solution for a BlackBerry device and Microsoft Outlook. Typically, large business and enterprise users have little issue with this problem, since BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Exchange, GroupWise or Domino takes care of the process. That’s not the case for individual, BlackBerry Internet Service users, who have to connect their device through USB and have the Desktop Manager software perform the synchronization.

This process is less than ideal for small business users, cost of which is only one factor. (You can get a free copy of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express for one user, which is expandable for up to fifteen users with additional client access licenses.) Unfortunately, it’s not just the software itself that users balk at paying for - you have to be running Exchange Server, Novell GroupWise or Lotus Domino as your backend email server, which can be a much more expensive proposition than BES itself. In my client’s case, they’re running a package called AltN MDaemon for Windows, which provides OWA-like functionality through a component called WorldClient. BES was not an option in this case.

Fortunately, MDaemon (through WorldClient) does support a standardized component called SyncML. Using this guide, I was able to provide the following solution:

• The user account on the MDaemon server (userid@example.com) is accessed using the Outlook Connector component. This keeps all mail stored on the mail server, but also has the side effect of storing contacts, calendars and notes in IMAP-like format on the server as well.
• Mail coming to the MDaemon server for userid@example.com is also forwarded (using mail rules/filters) to the BIS account - in this case, userid@example.blackberry.net.
• The WorldClient and SyncML services are activated on the MDaemon server - for example, at http://mail.example.com:34567/.
• Using a component called SyncJE installed on the BlackBerry device, contacts, calendars, and tasks are synchronized with the server copies. This synchronization can be done manually, to keep data usage in check - or automatically. SyncJE is a fifteen-day trial with a nag screen, and is $39.95 to purchase.
• The following settings are used for SyncJE on the BlackBerry:
  

  URL: http://mail.example.com:34567/MDSyncML.dll (where mail.example.com:34567 is your WorldClient URL)
  Username: (the username for the MDaemon account)
  Password: (the password for the MDaemon account)
  Contacts Folder Name: contacts
  Calendar Folder Name: calendar
  Todo Folder Name: tasks

  The Zen Software site notes that “If you want to synchronise a Public Contacts, Calendar or Tasks folder instead then use the following format in the FolderName field instead:

  ./Public Folder/company.mail/Contacts”

While I can’t officially recommend this solution as the best option, it works well for my client’s needs, and may assist you with your own personal scheduling systems. For example, SyncML components may be available for your mail server, which would also work with SyncJE.