Although Research In Motion Ltd. promotes its BlackBerry wireless e-mail device as an open and extensible platform for developers, those competing against RIM in the wireless enterprise market argue its new devices will only work with RIM servers and infrastructure-thus making RIM’s offering strictly proprietary.
“I would say 75 percent of our customers are asking” for access to BlackBerry devices, said Kevin Byrd, vice president of marketing for wireless e-mail company JP Mobile Inc.
However, Byrd said JP Mobile is not able to support BlackBerry devices with its own wireless e-mail server because RIM has not released the application programming interfaces for its new BlackBerry devices. APIs are essentially the keys to a given device, allowing a server to interact with that device. Without full access to the BlackBerry APIs, JP Mobile’s wireless e-mail servers cannot communicate with BlackBerry devices.
And those in the industry argue that JP Mobile is not the only company unable to support RIM’s BlackBerry devices.
“RIM has pretty much closed down their environment,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing with research and consulting firm Gartner. JP Mobile is one of Dulaney’s clients.
Dulaney said his research shows that no company has direct access to RIM’s BlackBerry devices. Thus, those wishing to use RIM’s new BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices also must purchase RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
“RIM has not opened their device to alternative e-mail delivery systems,” Dulaney said. “The bottom line is that, as far as we can tell, the platform is not open.”
RIM disputes the allegations.
“There is no question that BlackBerry is an extensible platform and we’re very open to working with other vendors,” said Mark Guibert, RIM’s VP of corporate marketing. “Of course, there will be situations that don’t make sense. I’m aware of the JP Mobile example and I understand that they may not be happy, but it’s a narrow example and there are security issues tied to opening up that specific scenario and we quite frankly haven’t seen any significant customer demand to support it.”
Guibert said Consilient, MobileStash, Notify and other vendors are able to support BlackBerry devices.
“So, it’s possible, it’s happening, we’re open to doing more and we’re actively encouraging developers to work with RIM and our carrier partners around the world,” he said.
That JP Mobile and others have run into problems in supporting RIM’s devices indicates an increased level of security around the BlackBerry APIs. JP Mobile currently supports Palm- and Pocket PC-based devices, as the APIs on those devices are open and available to any software developer. APIs give developers access to the inner workings of a device, and allow JP Mobile’s servers to send e-mails down to the device. Most wireless e-mail services include a server that connects a standard e-mail program like Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook to a wireless device.
“Normally, APIs are free,” said JP Mobile’s Byrd.
Byrd said JP Mobile supports RIM’s older BlackBerry devices, such as the 957 series. He said the APIs for those devices are easily accessible. However, Byrd said JP Mobile cannot access the APIs for RIM’s newer class of devices, such as the 6000 and 7000 series that feature voice and data functions. He said JP Mobile would be willing to pay a “reasonable” fee to access those APIs since JP Mobile’s customers are clamoring for RIM’s newer devices. Indeed, JP Mobile is in discussions with RIM for just such a deal.
The situation is such that Gartner’s Dulaney is advising his clients to steer away from RIM’s products. He said that since RIM is not making its APIs easily accessible, businesses looking to install wireless e-mail services would be locked into using RIM’s servers as well as its devices. Dulaney said customers looking for an open platform would be better served by going with Palm- or Pocket PC-based devices and servers from other providers.
“Enterprises want things to look like a PC,” Dulaney said. “They want to build software and then migrate it to various machines where they can get the best price and service. RIM’s environment on the device must be called proprietary … most of my clients don’t want the lock-in they see with RIM Blackberry environments.”
