Handheld Explosion

by Doug Hafford, Afinety+ Zine, Fall 2010

The most rapidly changing portion of the IT world is the handheld.  These include the venerable Blackberry, elegant iPhone, upstart Android, and now the eye-catching Apple iPad. Law firms are faced with the prospect of supporting these devices (or not) and the challenges they present to the firm’s IT solution.  We are often asked if a client can reasonably support these devices and what other firms are doing.  The answer is that they are easy to support and that choices vary from one firm to another.

There are really only two categories of handhelds: Blackberry or Not Blackberry.  Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the Blackberry device was the first to market with a fully functional handheld that allowed the user to combine a phone, with email and contact information.  The original devices were bulky and had only basic features, but they did work.  From the beginning, this is what sets Blackberry apart.  If you want a rugged, works all the time device then it is hard to beat the Blackberry in its various forms.  When they were the only game in town, their market share was enormous and they captured both commercial and government business to an extent that it is still a challenge today for other devices in these sectors.

The Blackberry Enterprise Server software allowed a firm to support these devices from their servers instead of the user’s local desktop.  This was again an area where RIM led the market and it still does even today.  The Blackberry Enterprise Server now comes in two flavors; full Enterprise Server and the Enterprise Express version.  The difference between the two is essentially the platforms they support and the rules and policies that can be applied to a handheld.  For example Enterprise Express supports only Microsoft email systems, while the Enterprise software supports Lotus Notes and others.  Enterprise Express has over 75 IT policies, while Enterprise has over 500.  

For most firms the Enterprise Express takes care of anything they might need and best of all, it’s free!  When I say free, I mean free.  The Enterprise Express software now supports – at no charge – up to 75 devices on a shared email server (meaning you can load it right alongside your Microsoft Exchange Server) and up to 2,000 devices on a dedicated server!  You just download it and go.  A feature comparison is available at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/business/server/express/.
In a recent meeting with our RIM representative, they told us that the free software has turned what was market erosion into resurgence in the sales of their devices.  It is clear that this is a reaction to the other handhelds, which are all supported by Microsoft Exchange Server directly. 
RIM in recent years has faced some stiff competition from sexy newcomers like the iPhone, Droid and iPad and now has announced its own version of the iPad the Blackberry Playbook.  How that will do against the iPad is yet to be seen, but they are clearly responding to the market challenges and in ways that will benefit their corporate clients.

iPhone, Android based phones from Google and others are all supported directly with  Microsoft’s ActiveSync portion of its Exchange email server.  Thus no additional software is needed to support these devices and in most cases, setup is quick and easy.  Once the ActiveSync side is setup, which takes only minutes, phone setup is just a matter of selecting the very few options on how mail, contacts and calendar are synched, then you are off and running.  With this simplicity comes a far reduced feature set.  For example, with the Blackberry you can wipe the device back to the stone age from your server.  You can do this with ActiveSync but that function can be blocked by a user and only happens the next time the device attempts to connect to your email server.  What this means is that the only real value to this function is if a handheld is lost or stolen.  A malicious user can simply block the connection and walk away with all the firm data they want.  With the Blackberry, the server reaches out to the device and performs a much more sophisticated set of changes.  Thus if your firm is concerned about security, then Blackberry is your best choice.

The “not Blackberry” crowd, however, is often forced upon the firm by users’ desire for slick apps and design features.  While Blackberry has added and keeps adding apps, it’s just not as cool looking as an iPhone or Droid and they are clearly playing catch up in this area.  These devices work just fine for most firms and since they are easy to setup, there is little reason not to allow them.  For your IT department or IT vendor, the level of support is about the same between the two and because the “not Blackberry” devices are so simplistic, there is not much of a learning curve involved in supporting them either.  The only real difference is that the Blackberry devices themselves tend to be sturdier (try dropping your iPhone from 3 feet vs. a Blackberry) and they are clearly much more flexible in the ways you can set them up especially for email and contacts.

Probably the biggest drawback to the iPhone/iPad is that they only work with a single mobile provider.  The Android operating system phones went from a 2% market share in January of 2009 to nearly 20% in May of 2010!  This staggering growth comes from two factors.  First, the phones are just as cool as the iPhone and offer both fun and valuable apps, but they also support a variety of carriers.  In southern California, and in fact most of the US, the best coverage comes from Verizon.  So if you want Verizon you have to buy a Blackberry or Droid and that fact alone has helped the competition gain ground against the Apple offerings.

The verdict?  What it comes down to is firm policy.  If your firm provides phones to its staff, then you should strongly consider Blackberry.  They are sturdy, reliable and secure.  If you offer to support but not supply phones, then let them get what they want.  It is not difficult to support both types of phones and the users can then choose what is best for them.