Blackberry options?

[drwho]

At present we have network edition running on a Centos platform. My Blackberry can connect over IMAP. This is of course quite limited, and I was interested to hear of the BES Express beta program.

This is where I get very confused. I was hoping for a simple plugin for Zimbra, running on the same server, which would fully integrate Blackberry into the Zimbra server...

I was stunned to realise that to implement BES Express I will need the following:

New hardware (dedicated server)
Install **Windows** 2003
Install Outlook !!!
What looks like a pretty complex installation, configuration and provisioning exercise

All our servers are Linux. We don't want to get involved with Windows!


Have I understood correctly? Sorry if I seem a bit out of touch, but this all seems completely OTT!

Is there not a simpler method for integrating my Blackberry with Zimbra with a simple plugin?

[deepblue]

I was stunned to realise that to implement BES Express I will need the following:

New hardware (dedicated server)
Install **Windows** 2003
Install Outlook !!!
What looks like a pretty complex installation, configuration and provisioning exercise

Yes, you are right. It is a complex thing. If you want Blackberrys to be in sync with your Mailbox (Mail, Calendar and Contacts), the recommended way is to run a Blackberry Enterprise Server (aka. "BES" a product build by RIM - the "inventors" of Blackberry). The only supproted platform for BES is Windows.

All our servers are Linux. We don't want to get involved with Windows!

In that case, you will have no chance run a BES. You could try the ActiveSync approach. I know, that there are 3rd party Applications (that you have to install on the Blackberry) to make them sync through ActiveSync with the Zimbra Server. Those 3rd party apps don't come for free and I don't have any experience with it...

Regards
Thomas

[drwho]

Thomas:

Thanks for the reply.

Having accepted what is to be done, I decided to give it a go, using a virtualbox VM.

Of course I'm still installing W2003 - multiple updates and reboots!