Hi all,

It's probably in the archives *somewhere* but I'm looking for a reason why a small shop (currently 11 phones, potentially going to 20) would need Enterprise Server (5.0) over a Professional Software install.

I believe that BES 5.0 will allow html emails on the handheld (that would be a big plus). I also understand BES 5.0 will allow mirroring/failover for DR purposes (another plus). Are there any other items to consider?

Thanks in advance.

There are a couple of other features such as calendar view/busy look up, but HTML mail is the big divide between the two versions in the eyes of small/medium sized businesses (who generally don't think too much about BES failover). The BPS threshold of users is 30 max, but it sounds like you won't be breaking that barrier.

BPS will go end of life at the end of the year, and we are unlikely to see any new service packs for this platform, but again, that probably wouldn't stop smaller firms from going with a BPS deployment, especially as you can install it (and have it supported by RIM) on the same physical machine as Exchange server.

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Thanks for the info. Calendar view/busy seems like that would be important to us. We currently are running a mix of Palm (ActiveSync) and Windows Smart Phones and our power users would not want to lose any features from those platforms.

Anything else that would be a significant differentiator?

Again, thanks in advance for any info...

JV, if you were on a short timeline, based on the requirement of not losing features, I would say that BES would be your best option, albeit more expensive.

If you did not have a timeline, I would engage RIM to see what their plans are regarding the BPS platform in the 5.0 family. As Si mentioned, BPS will be EOL as of the end of this year and there have been no updates to it (aside from security fixes for the widely publicized PDF vulnerabilities) for quite some time now (almost two years). The profit margin for BPS is likely a sinking ship, so I'm not sure if RIM will continue the trend on the 5.0 platform (rumors are they will, but the current economic climate may dictate this sort of decision on their part).

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The views expressed by me on Port3101.org are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.