Dear reader,
This post isn't typical for NotesBerry in that it is not about providing a solution to a problem you might be experiencing. Rather I'm highlighting a problem that you may be suffering but is out of your control and out of my control.
The recently released BES 4.1.6 will hopefully resolve issues that, anecdotally, some Domino customers were experiencing with 8.0.1 and BES 4.1.5. Good news! In addition there are numerous other bug fixes in that release. The server team have obviously been busting a gut to fix issues. If that weren’t enough 4.1.6 adds a number of really cool features for Domino customers:
Supports Notes and Domino 8.01
HTML and Rich Content in Mail
Support for Sametime 8
Support for doclinks and hotspots
...
Now Whilst these new features are very very welcome I have a concern and that's the availability of device software to get the most out of those new features.
Carriers like O2 and AT&T are responsible for distributing device operating systems. Just like Notes and Domino the cutting edge features of BES and the BB Device are to a greater or lesser extent dependent on each other. This is true of the new HTML and Rich Content features of Mail which require BES 4.1.6, device OS 4.5 and Domino 7.0.2 or better. Cool. I can upgrade from 4.1.5 to 4.1.6. I’m already running Domino 8 something and my device is running the latest OS available from O2. So you'd think I’m all set…..
No.
O2 currently offers device OS 4.2.2.181 and not the required OS 4.5. Despite suggestions of new software being available in April 08 O2 cannot tell me when a newer release will actually be available or what version will be released. It’s almost August 2008!
So whilst we can all blog about the new features and how nice it would be to have them the reality is that they are only available via emulators and development environments. There’s not much point evaluating those new features when I have no idea when they’ll be available for real.
Is this RIM’s fault? I doubt it. Carriers, as I understand it, pretty much rule the roost as far as the QA and GA of software on their network goes. I wonder if that’s true for the Apple, does anybody know if Apple is in control of the OS or the carrier? Anyway I abhor blame, let's just fix the situation.
In my opinion, and this may or may not be born out by Paul Mooney's experience of iPhone ownership, the BlackBerry has some technical advantages over the iPhone for Domino customers. With the features available in BES 4.1.6 we could make a stronger cases to our lines of business that the BB is the better platform for now. I'm saying 'could' in place of 'can' because the carriers are not responding quickly enough with the device OS or communicating effectively what we can expect going forward.
So in lieu of a solution I'm simply saying that if you are running a BlackBerry OS software earlier than OS 4.5 because it's not available then call your account manager and politely ask what they are planning to do about it.
Jason
