Nokia's call, for sure. But, remember, there are huge licensing fees associated with BB Connect, not to mention that BBC licensees are always second-class citizens in RIM's eyes.
That's certainly RIM's prerogative, after all, it's their ball, they can make the rules. I think that's the key driver here. Why make a substandard experience on a fantastic device?
Consider this.. What do the vast majority of BES installations connect to? Exchange. So, put your IT Manager hat on for a minute. You've already got a site license for Exchange, and don't need to purchase additional seats, since mobile access is covered by your existing CALs. You've got a choice to make. You can continue paying tons of $$ each year for support on your BES installations, and pay $20-45 more per month for each user's data plan, or, there's an alternative. Install a single Exchange Server in your DMZ area, and let your users use freely available ActiveSync clients. BES licenses aren't cheap either. A 500 user license pack has a list price of $27,499. That kind of money doesn't come as easily in today's economy.
On Windows Mobile, it's part of the core OS, same for iPhone 2.0 and PalmOS. On S60 phones, there's the free Mail for Exchange client, or if you want some more advanced features, $50 gets you a single license for RoadSync (right now it's on sale for $30). There are also volume license deals for RoadSync. RoadSync also works on UIQ and most J2ME phones.
All of the ActiveSync solutions sync at a minimum your inbox, contacts, calendar entries and task items. Several of the clients sync your entire folder hierarchy as well.
Take a look at a company with 1,000 mobile email users. You've got upwards of $50k in BES license costs, plus annual support on it. You're paying $45-50 each month per user on top of voice plan for a BB Enterprise plan. That's another $45-50k each month, or another $540-600k per year in data use. Don't forget to add in annual BES maintenance too.
Flip over to the other side, ActiveSync. Your users can now use data plans like the AT&T MediaNet Unlimited at $15/month, or the PDA plan at $30/month. That gives you annualized data costs of $180-300k. Ok, Mr. IT manager, think you might get a raise with the $300-420k you just saved the company?
Of course, this fails to address device cost, but you'll note I didn't factor that in for either side. For customers with 1,000 users, carriers are willing to negotiate deep discounts on devices, of course. As an alternative, you can offer your users the option to buy a device from a pre-defined list, and offer them a reimbursement allowance.
You still have lots of centralized policy enforcement with ActiveSync, including remote wipe capabilities. Your users still get their email, you get a raise, and everyone's happy.
