Why risk a network outage?

As many of you are aware, the Research In Motion (RIM) Network Operations Center (NOC) had a nationwide network outage yesterday - for the second time since April 2007. That means Blackberry email came crashing to a halt for many BlackBerry customers. The impact of that network outage on productivity, business and communications was tremendous - millions of emails were delayed. All of this made me wonder whether the majority of people out there even know what a NOC is, let alone realize that their email is going through one. All email (business and personal) sent through RIM"s servers are routed through a NOC. When the NOC fails, your email stops working.

If a NOC does crash, users, IT departments and carriers who are using Blackberry devices have to sit and wait for the NOC to be fixed. They don't control the situation (or the fix). Let's not forget to mention the added costs of subscribing to the service.

Better to switch than fight?

We believe that the best solution is to eliminate third-party email servers, hassles, and costs, while maintaining simplicity and control. For instance, Microsoft Exchange Server provides a reliable foundation for a smart wireless deployment that leverages an organization's existing infrastructure - no middleware or third-party servers. Simply add a Palm smartphone and you have a voice and email solution that will keep you in touch and productive, without the NOC hassles - or the NOC outages.

Mark C. - Senior Manager, Enterprise Solutions

Comments

[Bryan]

I think this is a really bad move on Palm's part. Negative advertising, given Palm's market place right now, really shows some management weakness. Continue the path of positive, new products to advertise, rather then attack others when they have a moment of failure.

It's one thing if you think you have a better product. However, Palm DOES NOT. You cannot get the same things you can with Exchange Activesync you can with a Blackberry Enterprise Server. It simply does not compare. No, subfolders, no IT management, etc.

I'm a 700p owner, and a BES admin. So I can appreciate both worlds. However, currently, Blackberry offers the best corporate push e-mail system out there.

Palm does not come close. Please stick to positive advertising, rather than this crap.

Please.

-Bryan

[GSG]

And what about the other half of all corporate messaging systems based on Lotus Notes/Domino?

It's a shame, but due to Palm's bumbling over the years, including poor customer service, products that don't innovate and are buggy and unstable, and lack of direction, most corporations have found it far easier to eliminate Palm devices and the infrastructure needed to support them and beefed up their investment in Blackberry-related products.

[KM]

As if setting up Exchange in a fault tolerant way was a simple and cheap task (and it works on Windows only...)
Poor Palm.

[John Kellersman]

I'd rather have an operating system that fail once every 6 months, versus a system that fails every day!!!

[qrius]

I'm very surprised by this kind of blog from Palm. You are in no position to attach Blackberry given your current standing. It's like a bench player telling an all-star his faults.

Get your own OS out the door, and stop this senseless ranting based on Windows Mobile, which you didn't create, and used to be your enemy until you realized you couldn't keep up and joined the dark side.

[Jonathan Merrill]

I applaud Palm for recognizing what many industry people have been seeing. Many not wanting to disparage Blackerry. My colleagues and partners have all come to the same conclusion. Your time is coming to an end, RIM.

It may take 7-10 more years and RIM will continue to have a good run. But how long will it last? Why invest in technologies whose times are limited, even outdated? And what, exactly, has RIM done lately?

Palm clearly competes with RIM. Let's not relegate their opinion with a fervor of negativity of the likes of the inane Apple vs. PC mindset.

Bravo.

[AvanHerpt]

I agree with the comments that attacking out of weaknesses is a futile attempt to win customers. Palm should build on its strengths such as the ability to beam contacts. Having owned a Palm 500, Tungsten E and now a Treo 650, I have always enjoyed the ability to beam my contacts from one device to another, even more so with colleagues, intermediaries and my wife who happens to have a z22. Stick to and build on your strengths and stay focused. While I enjoy the success of a Canadian company being a resident of Canada, I hold a fondness to Palm because of their unique features and 3rd party software. RIM can't make those claims.

Al

[Steve Thompson]

A couple of things. First, a NOC is a Network Operations Center. If your NOC crashes, it means they can't see what your network is doing, not that your network has crashed. Observation here would be that if you're going to explain something to make your competitors look bad, wouldn't it help if you didn't make yourself look stupid?

Secondly, how is RIM's technology outdated? That's just an unfounded claim. It's quite funny that Palm fans cite the ability to beam contacts as a major advantage. It's only a major advantage if everyone else has a Palm device, which they clearly don't as practically everyone has a BlackBerry.

Finally, Palm can only claim "uptime" for their solution if they acknowledge "downtime" when some obscure carrier in Asia has an outage and their one Palm user can't get his mail. It's unrealistic to call a dial-up connection "uptime".

[tk421]

What about soft reset loops and dbcache issues that I have on my TX? How many times a year, should I say a month, do I have to reinstall software on my TX?

Honestly, I can't imagine having problems like that on a phone. I'd rather deal with an afternoon of downtime every year.

I don't think Palm is in a position for negative advertising.

I still wish you the best.

[STM]

Dreadful marketing. Palm push email is a nightmare to use and slow the 680 down to a crawl, when the GPRS connection actually works.

You have multiple software problems with your devices that you take forever to fix. There are also many hardware issues that make Palm a laughing stock.

You are in no position to criticise, because you are not producing anything meaningful.

[Are you kidding]

Regarding comments from "Bravo"...

I find it funny that you asked what has RIM done lately. In the time that Palm has done just about NOTHING with the Treo (changing the color doesn't count), RIM has released some very cool devices. What has Palm done lately... Ohh yeah, that's right they release the Foleo, how is that doing?

[Ubiquitous .]

Bitter much?

Didnt you learn from Apple's mistake when they kept on bashing Windows Vista?

Even their own fans told them to back off and start more positive advertisment.

Shame on you Palm.

[John McMichael]

Calm down people. Palm's had it issues as every tech company does, but why shouldn't they respond in an opportunistic way when a competitor had a goof. The point is still valid. RIM's system is vulnerable to this type of thing happening and Palm has an alternative. Just because RIM isn't perfect doesn't mean people can't bring up this fact and offer up other solutions. It's called competiting. Stop whining about every little thing.

[bulls96]

To Palm's defense...

When Apple pokes at Microsoft in all those Mac Ads, no one sees it as "dirty", "bad marketing"...

I think its just a negative PR thing that Palm has with the public. People should keep an open mind about it.

Palm is no different than Apple in trying to topple the competition.

[sgmt]

I'm sorry, but Palm is absolutely right on this one. One might call Palm "lame" or "outdated" for not updating a hardware line or software line (which is untrue), but such an observation has nothing to do with the core model of the platform: In this case, centralization (the Blackberry model) is bad. In this case, not only does a company have to worry about the failure of its own networks and e-mail systems AND the cellular provider but it must also worry about the failures of Blackberry's systems as well. Probability 101: How are three points of failure going to ever be more reliable than two?

To those suggesting that Palm does not offer Push e-mail (it does, ironically using RIM -- if you want it), I ask, "Why do you really need it?" How hard is it to press a "check mail" button on one's own terms? Even still, for the truly paranoid, how hard would it be to simultaneously send an SMS of the same email to insure instant notification to end users?

For those asking "what about the other half of all corporate messaging systems based on Lotus Notes/Domino?", have you ever heard of IMAP? It's built right into your product! And guess what?!? You can connect directly to it!

Security paranoid? Why continue sending your in-house business communication in plainly visible text to RIM? Why does RIM need to know your business? Palm has a great selection of VPN clients to allow your end-users to connect directly to the in-house network for secure communications.

Honestly, this dramatic and timely statement from Palm is not about the devices -- it's about the overall model. Palm is doing a lot of IT lemmings a service here to say 1. Wake up! and 2. there are, thankfully, still other ways of doing mobile business communication.

[Power User]

I would never pay an extra $30-$40 a month just to use RIM's email service. I can use Mergic VPN and Snapper Mail Enterprise and get my company IMAP email with all subfolder and it costs me nothing but the price of the software and a cheap unlimited Sprint data plan. There has always been a better way to do almost everything using Palm OS.

[Ned Webbers]

Sure they had an outage, but at least I can synchronize the Blackberry with a 64 bit OS. My Palm device can't...no 64 bit drivers. Been waiting almost 2 years now and still nothing. Basically my Palm is now garbage.

[Jimmy]

I have to agree with Bulls. Seriously people, the intent of the post is valid. RIM has a vulnerability and bringing it up to discuss is not a bad idea. Does that alone mean I will switch, I don't know. But it's valid thing for people to think about with a device. And for those who have said Palm would have the same issue if the carrier went down, well hey, that applies to anyone.

[Gregg]

For bulls96-

I would strongly suggest brushing up on the technical aspects of RIM's solution before you condemn it.

For starters, IMAP will not provide synchronization of address book, calendar, tasks, notepad, or custom applications. In addition, the RIM (and Good) solution uses *encrypted* outbound-only connections from the BES (or Good) servers. Data is absolutely not sent in clear text and there is no need to punch holes in firewalls for inbound connections from individual client devices, thus opening up corporate networks to additional vulnerability.

Third, with no effective means of doing policy management for hundreds or thousands of devices that contain your corporate data (that happens to be just as vulnerable once it's on the device as when it is in transit) when not using the Exchange solution, the Palm device again falls short for business.

Being a Blackberry admin, a Good admin, and OneBridge/Extend Connect admin, and a PalmOS user since the very first day that the Palm 1000/5000 were available I know very well what the capabilities are of the different platforms and when one might better suited to a particular audience. The fact of the matter is that Palm's little salvo has fallen on deaf ears because they simply are not a corporate-ready platform any longer.

Besides, my Treo 700 and Centro have had far more downtime in the past year (especially when you add up the time lost to reboots) than RIM's service has been unavailable.

[Chad]

I agree with some of the other comments that Palm may not be perfect, but I will say that they have had a LOT more experience in creating something that works than RIM and therefore leave RIM in the proverbial dust. RIM may have beat Palm to combine the "PDA" with a Phone, but as to the end product, once again Palm is far superior by comparison. I am a HUGE fan of Palm and the the versatility that it provides - I wish I could say the same for BB since my company has been selling/using BB for years.

Now if only Palm would be the first to enable end users to sync Outlook email through VersaMail/Exchange ActiveSync while using Palm Desktop Manager to manage/sync Calendar/Contacts so I don't have to share my entire personal life (personal calendar/contacts) with anyone that has access to my work email. (Hint Hint Palm Developers!!)

[paul]

I really like the Centro but I’m hearing about this ACCESS Linux OS that is eventually supposed to be loaded on to Palm devices. From what I have read it was supposed to be released on the Centro but has been pushed back to early 2009. I don’t like the look of the Treo but really like the Centro. I don’t want to miss the boat with Linux with a phone that will not run the new OS. Is it possible the new OS can be ported to the Centro or will there be a newer version released with the OS on it? I’m in the market for a new phone and the Centro has really caught my eye. If I can’t get the Linux OS I might wait a while or look at some of the bar phones from Samsung or LG

[Mark C. (Palm, Inc.)]

Thank you all for your comments -- pro and con.

The main idea of the blog was to challenge the paradigm that third-party Network Operation Centers (NOC's) are necessary, especially when maximizing control and minimizing costs are of primary concern. I have a follow up blog that addresses many of the comments listed above.

http://blog.palm.com/palm/2008/02/network-outages.html

As I wrote, for some organizations, the third-party NOC functionality and manageability benefits are important. However, for many organizations, eliminating the third-party NOC is worth considering. This is especially true when random third-party NOC outages are occurring with increasing frequency and IT Departments require greater control of their infrastructure -- all while struggling with shrinking budgets.

[Brad Verkauf]

My employer still uses Lotus Notes for e-mail. I am trying to access my work e-mail through the web on my Palm Centro, but everytime I log in I get an "authenticating" and "setting domino settings" message and then get kicked out. Does nayone know why this is happening?