Friday, August 21, 2009

Hey Blackberry, what's the deal???

I have been looking for a new cell phone for a while. (I know that most anyone will just answer back to that "Get an iPhone." And while I wouldn't mind some of the functionality, as long as I am limited to only using one on AT&T its not going to happen.) Sprint & Blackberry recently released a new phone and I was excited to see it. I have done some research on Blackberry recently and was surprised to see such a paradox in thinking. Some of the newest & fastest technology combined with something as simple as E-Mail that hasn't changed in almost 10 years. To this I have to ask, "What's the deal RIM?"

This is supposed to be the cell phone for the enterprise. Yet it does not natively support something as simple as communicating with an MS Exchange Server. Almost every other smartphone does this without a second thought. Rim has decided that going an entirely new route of going back to the ancient (in tech years) times and have a server for companies to add to their mail system to provide this service. Well thats sounds fine and dandy, but it isn't. They chage a hefty penny not only for the server, but for a license for each phone & an anual support contract for the license. (Just wondering...how many licenses break so that they need a support contract?)

I guess this isn't a huge deal for me. I won't be adding their server so it will make my experience with the phone worse and I won't be able to recommend them as highly. (I don't even have one and was driven to write this.) Its just a company that knows how to bleed its customers without them knowing.

If someone at RIM would like to comment about this I would love to know if I am missing something here. Is there some feature that is worth charging for that the others give away for free?

I think this is where I'm supposed to attack Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, or any of the others for their billing practices. (Unlimited does not mean a lot, it means without limit. Look it up.) I'm not going to do that. It looks like the technology that's the backbone for RIM products is where any other weirdness of these phones come from.

Come on Blackberry, lets get with the program and develop the world best phone, not just the best phone if you use your phone exactly how we tell you to.