Hosted BES Server

[dgamez]

Hi guys,

It's very nice to talk to you again,

Here at Netnovation we are proudly using ZCS Professional Licences also with Zimbra Mobile, and the SmartPhone synchronization support is excellent. But I'm concern about the Zimbra BlackBerry support method, tell you my story:

My cellphone service providers here in Venezuela (Digitel GSM and Movistar Telefonica), offer me a pretty good Hosted BES service, and here comes the issue: 'on their servers'.

When I browse to Zimbra - Products: BES Download (Beta) Registration Form it says "To use the Zimbra Mobile Connector for BlackBerry you must be running BlackBerry Professional or BES for Exchange...", but also says "Are you an existing Blackberry Enterprise Server customer?" (with Hosted BES option).


Then, it says "Zimbra Collaboration Suite Network Edition customers and trial users can register for the download and install the module for free during the Beta period. You can continue to use the Connector for BlackBerry for free past the Beta period if you have a Zimbra Mobile license., and allow me to download the ZimbraBESConnector-5.0.0_GA_1862_5.0.2428.msi file.


So, here comes my doubd:

Do I must own and administrate a BlackBerry Professional or BES for Exchange Server?

What if I have a Hosted BES service with my cellphone provider, who won't install the .msi file on 'their' servers for me?

We're not interested into buy a BES Server, but into use the synchronization support for BlackBerrys on the Hosted BES Service that we already have with Digitel GSM or Movistar Telefonica.

Any help or advice?



Regards,

Daniel Gamez
Netnovation - Move Forward - Bienvenido(a) a Netnovation

[brwatters]

Daniel,

I have been on this issue since the early days of Zimbra, Trust me when I say your thoughts will die as mine have, It appears the solution for Zimbra is to re-introduce Microsoft Exchange back into your networks which of course is most likely the main reason most of us that pay for the Network Edition of Zimbra switched in the first place was to kick Microsoft out of our data centers.

Really back in the early days Blackberry was to have been nativily supported from within Zimbra and after a period of time that bit of info was removed from the Zimbra corp. site.

Anyway Hosted BES appears to not be an option either as no one can come up with a YES/NO on if its supported and or how.

All this said we really do love Zimbra and its product offering, However their continued work around for BlackBerry devices continues to be a major problem for our widder company deployment both internally as well as our many business customers.

Brian Watters
Director
American Broadband Family of Companies

[Masta7Mail]

I know this is an old post, but has anyone found that Zimbra can connect with a hosted BES provider? Is the Zimbra connector for Blackberry only useful for in-house BES?

I have zimbramail through a hosted provider and they offer NotifySync for BlackBerry users.

Masta7Mail
Seamlessly connected through The Message Center

[fnguyen]

Dear all,

Has anyone solved this issue since the first post?
Thanks

[fcash]

Don't know about the hosted BES options.

But I do know that you don't need MS Exchange in order to use the in-house BES. All you need is Windows Server 2003 (or newer) and MS Outlook 2003 (or newer). Outlook provides all the Exchange support you need to connect the BES Pro 4.x to Zimbra NE 5.x (or newer).

We have this all running in a little VM on our Zimbra server, and it's been running great for just under a year now. No Exchange services, installs, licenses, or even docs needed.

There is a limitation of 50 BES clients in this setup (not sure if that's a BES Pro limitation, an Outlook limitation, or a Zimbra limitation). However, all it takes is to provision another VM for every 50 clients.

[odeleon]

Well, from what I've gathered you can't use the same BES that is/was installed for Exchange when you move to a Zimbra environment. You need a fresh install ... and most likely a BB device wipe (or at lease the service books)

The reason for this is that when you use BES with ZCB for Zimbra you need Outlook installed in the BES server and it is incompatible with the MS Exhange Admin UI that's installed when using Exchage. This is a restriction coming the Windows side.

That said, I think it's unlikely that you'll be able to work with a hosted BES since it is almost certain to have the Exch Admin UI installed and running. Ask your provider.

On a side note, that 50-device limit was raised to 250 in an earlier release of ZCS (I think it's 6.0.1, but I'm not sure right now)

[nodramas]

Any progression on this issue or updates? (Especially in regard to hosted BES integrating with ZCS??)

I was one of the very early adopters of Zimbra. Its incredibly disappointing that native integration isn't an end goal....

In addition this advertising on Download Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Zimbra Desktop free email client, Zimbra for BlackBerry is highly misleading in my view...

Zimbra Blackberry Connector

Over-the-air sync of mail,
address book, calendar
from network server to
blackberry devices.

Download Now


Yeah... all you need is the Blackberry Enterprise Server... lol...

[quietas]

One of the quick and easy ways is NotifySync, but there is a subscription fee.