Confirmed Details of Blackberry Enterprise Server Express

Since the announcement of Blackberry Enterprise Server Express (BESx), there’s been a lot of talk about what services will be offered with it. As we get closer to the release more details have been leaked and BESx is looking more and more appealing. BESx looks a trimmed down version of the BES (premium).

We’ve put together a list of some of the services:

• OTA Wireless email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks sync
• Manage email folders and search email on the mail server
• Full access to calendaring, meetings, availability and forwarding tools
• Set out-of-office replies
• Edit MSOffice documents
• Access company files behind the firewall and use mobile apps that are behind the firewall

List of features that are lacking:

• OTA Wireless enterprise activations
• High Availability
• No built in SQL Database Mirroring component (for older version of SQL)
• Enterprise Messaging and Social Networking features
• Only 35 IT Policies, compared to 450 on the BES Server (full version)
• No Migration path from BESx to BES offered at the moment
• Official support only offered via Blackberry forums, and online knowledge-base. Third party vendors like BoxTone have confirmed support for BESx

BESx will be a perfect way to save money for small to medium sized businesses with tight budgets and on the contrary will help RIM reach these businesses and customers.