Mac BlackBerry Users Rejoice: RIM Promises New Mac Tools
by Volker Weber
RIM plans to release a set of new tools within the first half of 2009 which will address a number of longstanding complaints from Mac users, according to a source within RIM who asked to remain nameless because the company's not yet ready to officially announce details or release dates.
Comments
About fucking time.
As my aged grandmother would say :o)
Mmmm, put that in the same category as a non-windows version of the BES.
It's the old line about 'We haven't done that because there isn't the demand, but I do wish people would stop asking me about it"...
I think I have to defend the non-Windows version of BES at this point.
BES exists in three flavours. Exchange, Domino and Groupwise. Lets assume for the sake of discussion that there's a LOT more exchange servers out there compared to Domino ones (for a number of reasons). And a lot more of those two than Groupwise servers.
And since all three mail platforms run on windows servers - and Exchange will ONLY run on windows servers - its a pretty easy decision to advocate that the servers will be initially developed on Windows.
The difficulty that we now face is that some of us would like BES to run on Linux. Lets assume that say 80% of domino servers run on Windows. And that of the 20% of remaining servers, the vast proportion are on Solaris, AIX, iSeries. The 'big tin' servers. (Lets not embark on a 'linux is better than AIX/Solaris/iSeries here).
So there's a very small proportion of total Domino servers out there in Environments that actually *want* Linux servers. No. Seriously. I wish it wasnt true either.
But out there in CIO land, do they really give a crap whether its on win2k3 or Red-Hat ? Some do - great. But the vast majority ? Yes, I agree, there's MORE Linux out there than ever before, etc.
So in terms of numbers, we're down to a statistically very low percentage where the LACK of linux server actually makes a difference. What are those customers going to do ? Switch to iPhones or Windows Mobile ? No.
I dont think RIM will consider supporting a non-windows BES server for a very long time, as they're frantically throwing all resource they have (in my humble opinion) to make sure that BES 5 actually ships before most of the customers retire. They are very focused on making the late shipping BES 415 seem like a one-off mistake.
My perception is that it'd take a million customers worth of support - about the same as the number of BlackBerry customers on Domino (again, in my humble opinion) to get them to put it on the table.
Not because they hate Linux. But because even in a hugely profitable company such as RIM, multi-platform support is still a very expensive proposition.
---* Bill
