I have finally decided to try out hosted BES (“BlackBerry Exchange Server”) for my BlackBerry.
I’ve tolerated the BlackBerry Gmail Plugin for a few years and whilst it was a blessing back in 2008 or whenever it was made available, it’s a total arse that it doesn’t sync properly (delete on the BlackBerry and it doesn’t delete on your main account… truly annoying).
Since I use Google Apps, one solution is proper BES integration. I found Exchange My Mail‘s BES service for Google Apps a few weeks ago but it’s only this evening that I thought I should give it a go.
Theoretically this solution will give me proper calendaring, contacts and email sync. I actually only need the email sync part of it. The Google Sync app for BlackBerry works fine (and uses a different Apps account).
Anyway, I thought it was worth kicking the tyres.
I signed up for an account just now — free for 30 days — and it was setup and ready on their end within 10 minutes. Very impressive indeed.
I now need to authorise the service via Google Apps and, theoretically, that’ll be it ready to use.
We shall see.. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Have you done anything similar? I’d welcome your perspective.
I’m curious how this worked out for you. My biggest issue with Gmail on the BB is that I want to be able to archive/file from either the desktop or BB and have both be in sync — which the current BIS is poor at doing.
Wayne, I’ll do a follow-up post. I’m delighted to say it’s been working brilliantly without issue!
BES stands for “BlackBerry ENTERPRISE Server”, not “exchange.
I always forget that!