Sorry but all of you folk that don't work in a global company are deeply out of touch with how often one is REQUIRED to be on telephone conferences. It is insanely tedious and a poor substitute for face-to-face meetings, but it's damn difficult to get a global team with representatives in London, Hong Kong, Sydney and New York all together (not to mention prohibitively expensive). There's a time and place for phone calls, and this is definitely one of them.

Oh I get it! You're considering the BES itself as the third party software. Well sure then, adding third-party software to the Exchange environment must seem foreign. But you get a hell of a lot of functionality that just doesn't exist on a pure Exchange/ActiveSync deployment. Including the ability to push applications to the devices, S/MIME functionality, true AES encryption throughout the whole device... you name it. Yes - BES is a bolt-on to Exchange, but it's a damned useful one in large organizations. I get it if it seems to complicated for your environment or your users, then stick with Exchange/ActiveSync. I've been running it for a long time and one thing stays the same - users are still stupid and training is still required. That goes for WinMo/iPhone and any other mobile email solution you're running too though.

There isn't a podcast application strictly on the Blackberry, but you can sync the Blackberry with your iTunes and include podcasts using the Blackberry MediaSync program. You can find it here: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/media/mediasync.jsp

What third party software is required? Seriously. I want to know what you deem "required" in order to work "in a vaguely okay way". I've been a BES admin since version 1.0 (and we're going on ver 5.0 now). I've NEVER run any third party applications on the Blackberry server or device and have nearly 100% mailbox data replicated from the Exchange server to the device (we purposely limit which mailbox folders are replicated to the device).

I can understand if you don't like Blackberry servers or the devices. They're a bit of an acquired taste perhaps, but get your facts straight because you've obviously got NO idea what you're talking about.

Indeed - and even more so for those of us who've been limping along on the original iPhone. I wouldn't have bought it for myself but received it as a gift and I'm now really happy with the device (after jailbreaking to get most of the "new" features that will be included in the 3GS). But the hardware improvements are what are now driving me to upgrade. Lucky me - I've just reviewed my upgrade costs with ATT and I get the reduced rate upgrade. Wohooo! Not thrilled with the increase in data charges. It's going to cost me an extra $10 a month for the new phone, but that seems like a small price to pay for the speed and performance boosts that I'm getting.

Talk about a game that made a difference! I actually went out and BOUGHT a brand new joystick to handle all of the different input requirements just so I could run and gun while turning the torso. That's what made me unstoppable! Man, I still miss that game.

Yes - Microsoft has committed to updating OWA to provide equivalent functionality to IE with ActiveX (the full OWA experience) for both Safari and Firefox.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx

There are a few differences listed in the article, but it is more uniform.

Microsoft has committed to updating the Exmerge.exe tool specifically to support the Unicode PST format (20 GB limit) and should be releasing it this year.

It's low on their priority list, but since most Exchange admins love this utility - they finally agreed to update it.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/11/28/431669.aspx

Hmmm - really? I'll have to check that out. Sounds like a cry from a cartoon though...

Achievement UNLOCKED!

Wow - I need to go back to physics class. All I think when reading this post is:

1) Blah Blah Blah - curvature. I like curves on my women, but I have no idea what the hell he's talking about.

2) Blah blah blah non-linear enhancement. I swear he's talking about boob-jobs.

3) Blah blah blah - symmetry - blah blah blah - Einstein. WTF? I thought we were talking about boobs!?!

4)Blah blah blah asphericity blah blah. Now he's going on about asses? What the HELL is he talking about?