Extending the Enterprise With BlackBerry
I have a longer essay to write about this sometime, but it's interesting to read about all the companies that are deploying J2ME applications on the BlackBerry platform. Case in point: Manulife Financial recently deployed the mWholesaler sales force solution from Pyxis (a local MA company up the road from the home of BlackBerryBlog.com). I'm not really listening all that well to the Palm / MS Smartphone community, but it seems that RIM / BlackBerry has a compelling solution for organizations that want to provide wireless access to enterprise data. Palm doesn't sell server software, so that means if you want to deploy an application to a bunch of Palm devices, you have to write your own custom server-side solution, wire up encryption, make sure that everything is locked down appropriately and hope for the best... oh and if you want the ability to push alerts or any of the other features that the BlackBerry enterprise server offers, you'll have to write those yourself. With the BlackBerry platform, you can deploy your applications through BlackBerry Enterprise Server, encryption is automatic and you get all the great little benefits of having the BlackBerry Enterprise Server in place...
December 02, 2004 in News, Software by ajohnson
Comments
I have a few leads for enterprise blackberry apps but am not sure how to set up a development environment with a bes server etc. Is this easy to do or do you have to shell out for everything.
Keep blogging!
Cheers
Posted by: Richard Spence on December 2, 2004 5:49 PM
hi Richard,
You can download and install the BlackBerry JDE for free, which includes an email simulator, a mobile data server (MDS) simulator and the device simulator.
AJ
Posted by: AJ on December 2, 2004 7:24 PM
Richard,
check out http://flowfinity.com - they might be able to help.
Tom
Posted by: Tom on December 7, 2004 11:44 AM
It is not only about technology... there are cost considerations as well... For example, smaller shops may not be able to afford the BB devices, nor the server pieces.
ceo
Posted by: ceo on December 7, 2004 3:00 PM
BB is interesting as a true enterprise-grade mobile platform, but comes up short in a few key areas, namely availability of ruggedized devices, cost structure for blue collar applications that don't require email, and the development tools.
Rolling out a few hundred devices to my execs for mobile email is one thing, deploying mobile solutions on a standard platform (though the usage scenarios may differ from group to group) across the business is another.
Posted by: jjw on December 7, 2004 10:48 PM
Well, for Mobile Enterprise Development, how about the .NET Framework / .NET Compact Framework / Windows .NET Server 2003 / ASP.NET / Web Services / Smart Clients / Thin Clients? :)
I'm not aware of the Blackberry solutions for the Enterprise and although I love my Blackberry, I find the Smartphone / .NET Platform an awesome platform to develop for.
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