BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is the fully-featured BlackBerry mobile email service. It's designed for medium to large organisations with their own Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange servers for email and mobile data applications, that are going to start with at least 20 users and grow from there.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server lets your people access their email, electronic calendar, tasks list and contacts list as well as any internal applications or software on their BlackBerry handheld, wherever they are. They can harness their downtime, stay in touch with critical situations or decisions, keep abreast of activities as they happen in the field and use mobile data applications to increase efficiencies and productivity.
The business benefits of BlackBerry
Email has gone from a novelty to a critically important business tool faster than anyone expected. But until now, email could only go to your desk – where you and your people are spending less and less time. Instead, you're out: chasing business, in meetings, off shore, or even sitting in traffic.
And when you do return to your desk, you know whats waiting for you: the wall of email. Half the messages can be deleted immediately. Of the rest, some need short answers, some need thought and some are urgent. But dealing with them soaks up time and productivity before you can actually get down to your real work.
With BlackBerry, you can deal with your email anywhere, anytime. As soon as it's received on your organisation's email server, it's pushed out to your BlackBerry Wireless Handheld. You can read your messages. Reply to them. Forward them with comments. Delete them. File them in appropriate folders. BlackBerry's built-in calendar this totally synchronises with your desktop calendars.You can even arrange or cancel meetings and convert emailed requests into prioritised tasks on your To Do list. And of course, because the BlackBerry is also a fully featured mobile, you can make calls and send TXTs as well. Any contacts, tasks and memos as well as calendar and email are now replicated on your desktop and BlackBerry at the same time.
The productivity gains for your staff can be enormous. By dealing with email between meetings, while travelling and in other downtime, staff who use BlackBerry claim they gained an hour each day. Most of them also had a story of an urgent situation they were able to deal with immediately, thanks to instant email communication.
Mobile data applications
BlackBerry usually deals in emails, but of course that is just one use for mobile data. Other applications are constantly being developed on BlackBerry's reliable Java platform to connect mobile workers to your central servers.
These include CRM solutions, sales force automation tools, simple timesheet-style reporting functions and countless other mobile implementations of existing business applications.
The case studies linked from this page show examples of business applications utilising wireless connectivity.
You can use your BlackBerry handheld to download email and access mobile data applications in over 65 countries with GPRS data roaming.
BlackBerry is renowned for its seamless experience, you will notice no difference when you are overseas.
Do note that in some countries not all roaming partners where you can use your handset to make voice calls will work for BlackBerry. Before you leave NZ visit www.vodafone.co.nz/dataroaming to get an up to date list of countries and mobile networks where you can use your BlackBerry for mobile email.
How much does it cost?
As BlackBerry Enterprise Server is aimed at larger organisations the cost will depend on several factors such as how many users you want from day 1, how your IT environment is configured, whether you want Vodafone to manage the install, etc. We recommend that you talk with your Vodafone Account Manager to discuss your options and get an accurate quote for the cost of your deployment.
