OSNews

I used a Blackberry 8700 for years, and before that a much older model (957). I've worked for multiple customers who support these devices on their network.

I can tell you that a Blackberry is not like any other smart phone in that it requires tight interaction with your provider to get it to work, and this is by design. The Blackberry is the device of choice for large companies and governments because it can be controlled very tightly, even down to the Remote Wipe feature of BES, which I believe has been certified under Common Criteria.

Windows Mobile has spent years catching up to RIM in this regard, and the features in Exchange 2003 SP2 and Exchange 2007 are a pale imitation of what RIM has been doing for years.

You can't buy one of these off of the street and have it work with your provider, even if it takes a SIM card. 6 years ago when I got my 957 for free, I had to call my provider at the time and have the previous provider release the serial number for my usage before I could even activate it!

Your provider has to have a Blackberry Enterprise Server to get it to work correctly, as it has to push out all of the device settings. Yes, they will charge you a lot of money for this, as will any provider. Expect to pay $50 a month for the privilege if you don't sign up for a plan.

On the AT&T network, you have to use their front-end web application to configure mail accounts for the device, as AT&T has to push out a Service Book for them. I know this because I had my Gmail account set up on my 8700, and it pushed the Sent Items to me as regular mail, which was annoying. I got the Gmail application from Google just to get rid of that annoyance.

I also had a customer with a Blackberry 8820 attached to a corporate network that wanted to get his Gmail, so we gave him that application too, as customers who have theirs attached to a corporate BES are restricted to the corporate e-mail environment there for their messaging.

To even use the web browser, AT&T has to push out a "Service Book" for that, as their browser uses proxy servers at the provider that will provide interaction with either the BES at the provider or corporate site it is attached to.

The Blackberry is a smart device on its own, however to give a full review of it, it needs to be on a network, as the device itself is designed to interact and be paired with a Blackberry Enterprise Server, located either at a provider or corporation.

In other words, this makes an iPhone look open by comparison.