Company Wide BlackBerry Cutbacks

I was surprised to find the same thing about the Blackberry with the predictive text. They really did a good job with that. However, I decided to stick with the full QWERTY.
 
On Friday, I found out my employer is making "BlackBerry cuts" company wide and mine is a victim. I will be assigned a "regular" company phone on Monday. Shoot, once you go BlackBerry, it will be hard to go back. :p

My friends are still having fun razing me about this. :o
 
From 8/3/09:
On Friday, I found out my employer is making "BlackBerry cuts" company wide and mine is a victim. I will be assigned a "regular" company phone on Monday. Shoot, once you go BlackBerry, it will be hard to go back. :p

I am lucky though to still have a job and a free phone. If these BlackBerry cuts can save a job or two, it is worth it. I still did get to keep my laptop and Verizon Air Card.

Word up is that my BlackBerry may be reconsidered as my department has gone more automated and I would need to see certain error type message emails ASAP. My fingers are crossed.
 
From 8/3/09:

Word up is that my BlackBerry may be reconsidered as my department has gone more automated and I would need to see certain error type message emails ASAP. My fingers are crossed.

They are saying ONLY managers (i am a supervisor) can have BlackBerry's. Oh well, as I said, I still have a free phone provided by the company.
 
At our quarterly meeting last week, my CEO (who wore a Tux because we did well last qtr.) said some of savings we endured was the elimination of a percentage of BlackBerry's within our company. I grinned and thought of this thread after it was said. :cool:

As I said in the original post, if it saved a job or two, it was worth it.
 
I've always had a pretty simple policy on a mobile phone/Blackberry...

If you (employer) expect me to be connected and available, you need to provide me with the tools to do so. A personal Blackberry or mobile phone is just that...personal. It is not available for business use.

I now employ that philosophy to those who work for me. If I need access to people, I believe it's my obligation to make that happen.
 
I've always had a pretty simple policy on a mobile phone/Blackberry...

If you (employer) expect me to be connected and available, you need to provide me with the tools to do so. A personal Blackberry or mobile phone is just that...personal. It is not available for business use.

I now employ that philosophy to those who work for me. If I need access to people, I believe it's my obligation to make that happen.

That's why they issued me a laptop at work. They give them to all the project managers as a "perk,"ie. now you're expected to do more work at home.
(I'd never make as many posts on the DRC without it. . . . . )
They also give us a stipend for our cell phones. $30 / month pays for my data plan. Again, more posts to the DRC, but I have to keep my eye on my projects when I'm away from the office. It's a fair enough trade for me.
 
They offered us a choice when upgrading our computers at work: a new desktop, or a new laptop. The desktops were more powerful; the laptops mean you can work from home. I was one of the few that took the desktop, and I'll never understand why.
 
I never understood the whole "crackberry" curse.......until now. My wife recently started a new job and found herself in need of mobile data (email mostly). The idea of a data card for her laptop was considered but our cell phones were up for upgrade. To keep our plan we came to verizon with from alltel, and the fact that verizon had a bogo on BBs, that's the direction we decided to take. Its easier for her than carrying a lappy around everywhere, the data plans for both of hours are revelant to the cost of the single data card. I love this thing, and now understand the addiction, this is personal use though. My company kicked the idea of getting us all one than decided against it at the last minute. I'm glad too, they don't provide me communication when off so when I am off, I'm off. The computer and nextel brick phone they provide while I am working is enough to drive me away from company comm. Especially after my shift is over. I have never heard a phone ring as much as tha( damn nextel i365.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
BlackBerry e-mail breakdown triggers concern
Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Research in Motion Ltd. tried Wednesday to allay fears about its BlackBerry service, which suffered two e-mail outages in the past week.

The latest one occurred mid-Tuesday, after an episode Thursday night. The Tuesday afternoon disruption affected e-mail and Web browsing and continued into the evening. It was later attributed to updates to RIM's BlackBerry Messenger service, according to the company.

"Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure," the company said in a statement. "RIM has taken corrective action to restore service."

When the problems began Tuesday, Twitter and other online forums were peppered with laments about the failure.

"If my BlackBerry is down, everything is down," said Sarah Whalen, 22, who works at an advertising agency in New York. She said her BlackBerry did not work until Wednesday afternoon.

Outages are generally rare for RIM, but they cut at the heart of the company's main strength: delivering e-mails. The last major outage before this past week occurred in February last year.

"One of RIM's big advantages is that it's perceived as a reliable device," said Duncan Stewart, director of research and analysis at DSam Consulting. "To lose the advantage of reliability would, in fact, be a very big deal for this company."

RIM has sold more than 75 million BlackBerrys since the gadget premiered 10 years ago. It now counts 36 million subscribers around the globe and ranks second in the worldwide market for advanced smart phones, with a 21 percent share, behind Nokia Corp.'s 39 percent, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.

BlackBerrys are especially popular in occupations heavily dependent on messaging - among lawyers and business executives, for instance. RIM counts 500,000 subscribers in the U.S. government. President Obama has been a BlackBerry devotee.

BlackBerry e-mail breakdown triggers concern
 
It happens. I can live without email on the go for 6 hours.
For me, it was out from about 6:30 PM Eastern until about midnight. Not a disaster.
 
I think this all hinges on how important ones email is to them. If I was waiting on a presentation to be sent to me or an important document for a meeting then that totally changes the equation.

Bottom line is goes to reliability and this is the point of the article. Most average users could go without email for 6 hours, but when you bill yourself a the premium business email service then you can't take a nonchalant approach to not having access to email for 6 hours. This is damn serious for some businesses!
 
I don't think we use any of their servers to handle our mail. I'm not sure how it works, but I never experienced an outage.
 
I don't think we use any of their servers to handle our mail. I'm not sure how it works, but I never experienced an outage.

Most companies have their own enterprise server. For the most part it had to do with the personal accounts and Blackberry Messenger. I had considered getting a Blackberry to replace my 3G, but stuff like this changes all that.
 
Most companies have their own enterprise server. For the most part it had to do with the personal accounts and Blackberry Messenger. I had considered getting a Blackberry to replace my 3G, but stuff like this changes all that.

Ah. I've never used Blackberry Messenger. We just use SMS.
 
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