I’ve been a Blackberry user and BES administrator since 2005 and while there have been a few bumps in the road over the years, nothing has ever been so bad as to question the platform’s integrity as a service for the enterprise. From Sales, to Operations, to IT, these devices offer the access, reliability, and security that our business needs. Our people have become so accustomed to being connected 24/7 that they depend on it. Heavily. With our BES and RoveIT Mobile Admin implementation, I’m able to take care of a lot of issues without being at my desk, in the building, or even in the same state as my employer. The Sales guys are on the road all the time and pretty much live on their Blackberry when they’re not in a hotel where they can use their computer. 
In the last month, RIM has experienced several serious service outages that have left me, and hundreds of others at this company, disconnected. One of the issues was caused by…wait for it…a bug in Blackberry Messenger. What?! How can an enterprise service company like RIM let a bug in an instant messaging app take down their infrastructure? This just doesn’t seem right.
Now I’m wondering when the next outage will be, and if I’ll eventually start taking heat from executive management about it. This surely can’t turn into a pattern of service outages and poor reliability. Can it? I’ve been a rabid advocate of RIM / Blackberry and the BES over the years, but I’ve recently been downgraded from ‘rabid’ to ‘strong’ due to these reliability issues. I’ve even begun taking my laptop home more often, just in case.
I’m curious – if another vendor released a platform with the same basic security and functionality as the BES…how many would jump from the RIM ship?
Twitter
