Between Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and the new Microsoft Windows smart-phones, Blackberry certainly understands that market domination may be nothing short of a historical footnote. As of December 2009, RIM maintained a large share of the smartphone market. With competition coming from some very large names, Blackberry had to strike both hard and fast. First strike? The wallet.
Blackberry Enterprise Server Express Edition
RIM recently introduced a free version of the “popular” Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) software — the Express Edition. Additionally, RIM promises that there will be no additional user license fees for using this software. In the past, after spending $3k on the Blackberry server software, you would then purchase client usage licenses at $55 – $100 per license (depending on how many you bought). These costs added consideration for many people to avoid the Blackberry system whatsoever. Although an enterprise may not hesitate to spend more than $25k on user licenses, a small to medium sized business would much rather use a smart-phone with imap capabilities than worry about such an expensive integration. Read the rest of this entry »

