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IBM LotusLive Notes Hosted BlackBerry Service (live blog)


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This morning IBM kicked off it's first call on the LotusLive Hosted Blackberry option with a TechTalk after the press releases yesterday.  I captured some of the points from the call.

The meeting started late as the operator got on the call and stated they are having problems with the e-meeting.  Fifteen minutes in it was still the case... But we got it!  And they said there is really no slides.  The event was attended by over 190 people and most all were IBM.  I counted ~17 without the IBM tag behind their name.

A quick LotusLive strategy slide set was presented for the partners on the call.

Ed hinted at the upcoming releases past the third iteration that took place this past weekend.  There should be more this year.

What's new in GA3 that came out:
  • Additional mail manager controls, such as content older that "n" days removal
  • Support for limiting inbound emails including attachments
  • import contacts in any supported language
  • options to purchase add-on for Traveler (Android) and Blackberry
Now a look into the Blackberry portion, the biggest part of the GA3 release.  A big portion to pay attention to is that it ONLY supports the hosted users.  You cannot get BES access back to your other users in the on-premise deployment side.  (You will needed dedicated BES hosting to service cloud and internal users in one sweep).  BES is not multi-tenant, so they have to dedicate like any provider.

There is NO service level agreement (SLA) around this portion. There is around LotusLive Notes.  None around BES at this point.
  • Two flavors, MDS and non MDS
  • Provides hosted BES - redirects email messages and sync contatcts with cloud servers
  • 99.9% up-time SLO
  • Dedicated deployment environment - for every customer that says yes they physically get an image with BES.
  • Administrator and user self-service portal (remote wipe, password reset)
  • Sold in 12 month blocks at $10USD for non MDS and $15 for MDS
  • Available for only the Hybrid or service only environments
  • Corporate Directory lookup
  • No additional costs for licensing, BES upgrades included

Next was a list of gotchas for the service.  Pay attention to the minimum, MDS options and time to deploy.
  • Available for LL Notes users only
  • Decide which flavor.  You cannot mix MDS and non-MDS
  • Juniper SRX240 Services Gateway is only VPN/gatewway supported
  • 300 seat minimum purchase
  • Non-MDS takes a few days to a few weeks to onboard
  • MDS takes two to four week or longer to onboard
  • Documentation in English only
  • MDM in English only
  • Only features found in wiki are supported
  • customers must accept RIM terms of use
  • Blackberry devices must be running 4.0 and later (expected)
  • Migration of a current Blackberry is not supported, you must reactivate
  • After config you can not swap to MDS or non-MDS. pick carefully
  • Customer must place a Juniper SRX240 device on premise and give IBM an IP address for it
  • Proxy server is required
  • Customers firewall must allow UPD access over ports 500, 4500 and 10000 for LotusLive

If you are looking for hosting of Blackberry below 300 users, feel free to contact Connectria.

Find out why we offer the best in Lotus Software hosting and management.


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Image:IBM LotusLive Notes Hosted BlackBerry Service (live blog)