Um...Ok?

Story: Smartphone operating systems: The rise of Android, the fall of WindowsTotal Replies: 14
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devnet

Feb 09, 2013
4:55 PM EDT
This should be the fall of BlackBerry. Windows passed up BlackBerry sales the last 2 quarters and Windows Phones turned Nokia a profit this past quarter saving the entire company.

Plus, I'm no Windows supporter...but Windows 8 on the Lumia 920 is breathtaking.
dinotrac

Feb 10, 2013
12:15 AM EDT
It may be too soon to give last rites to Blackberry. The new Blackberry 10 appears to be a home run for the Blackberry crew.

Will enough current and former Blackberry users stay/come home?

Don't know the answer to that, but my wife dearly misses her old Blackberry and has expressed a great deal of interest in the new phones. Can she be alone?
caitlyn

Feb 11, 2013
11:21 AM EDT
Blackberry 10 looks very good indeed. That, plus the shiny new US government contract, and most analysts are saying that Blackberry (formerly RIM) has saved the company with Blackberry 10. They should be back in #3 position by March.
dinotrac

Feb 11, 2013
1:05 PM EDT
I have to admit to a bias in rooting for Blackberry, and even for Windows Phone.

Anything that fractures the mobile market also strengthens the case for HTML5 on mobile. I have no desire to support web AND separate mobile apps.
caitlyn

Feb 11, 2013
1:29 PM EDT
I have a bias in rooting for Blackberry for two reasons: 1. I'm a happy customer and 2. They have superior security compared to anyone else and I am very security conscious.

I'd love to support a FOSS phone OS. Let me know when when becomes viable in the marketplace. It hasn't happened yet. Android, as it exists today, is sold with all sorts or proprietary stuff larded on and in a closed format. If I root my phone nowadays I'm violating the DMCA. To me, right now, Android isn't any more free from an end user perspective than a Windows phone or a Blackberry or an iPhone.
devnet

Mar 03, 2013
2:33 PM EDT
The 'security' thing they tout is BS.

As an email administrator for a medium sized hospital with HIPPA concerns, I can tell you from a security standpoint, they're dead even with everyone. Once upon a time they were at the head of the class...not anymore.

Also, they didn't just land a government contact...they just got dumped in October of last year. The US Government dropped them as the exclusive provider...that opens up the floodgates for all departments to go get what they want. Which is why there was a mass exodus toward iPhones. Honestly, BB 10 is too little too late. Only one agency branch has given BB 10 a chance so far...sure there are going to be holdouts that didn't want to change, but people change smartphones now like they do their clothes. I wouldn't count on loyalty.

The thing that made BB's the best was the management server. It's what really set it apart from other offerings from other companies. THAT is what gave government agencies a warm and tingly feeling inside. That is what gave administrators like myself a warm feeling as well. Why would you keep this though when you can, with activesync, do all of the security things I used to do with BB...and do them right on the Exchange Server with NO ADDITIONAL BB SERVER. Darn right people are moving away from BB...because less to manage is better.

Honestly though, I don't see why people who have Active Directory from Microsoft won't choose Windows Phone. They're manageable through AD...they allow group policy. They allow authentication to the domain. Listen, I'm no Microsoft apologist but it is MICROSOFT and not BB who hit it out of the park with their latest mobile OS. I took the Lumia 920 for a test drive and instantly wanted to ditch my Android...it's seriously awesome. All this from the author of one of the oldest Linux blogs in existence...crazy eh?
patrokov

Mar 05, 2013
12:41 AM EDT
@devnet

It's funny how tastes vary, my brother says that the Windows 8 phone makes Android look easy and intuitive.
caitlyn

Mar 05, 2013
4:58 PM EDT
@devnet: With respect to security, Blackberry is most definitely NOT dead even: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/opinion/Loss-of-BlackBe... http://www.csoonline.com/article/696493/android-vs-ios-vs-bl... http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240148460/BlackBerry-mos...

There honestly is no contest here. Blackberry has more security features and can be more tightly controlled than the other platforms. Also, Exchange is a security nightmare in and of itself.

Finally, if you haven't tried a BlackBerry 10 you really don't know what you're talking about. They have hit one out of the park and many if not most analysts think they've saved the company.
CFWhitman

Mar 05, 2013
6:18 PM EDT
From what I've seen almost all of the criticisms of Android security amount to something along the lines of, "Android is insecure because it gives the user control of security, and users are too stupid to be in control." Personally, I want to be in control of my device, and that makes me feel more secure than handing it over to someone else.
devnet

Mar 06, 2013
1:40 AM EDT
@caitlyn

Exchange is NOTas bad of a security nightmare as people think. I know. I manage Exchange in an enterprise. It's what I get paid to do. Are there holes? Sure. Are there as many as other mail servers? Yep. Do they get patched. Yes they do.

As for BlackBerry having more security...HOGWASH. The absolute only thing that is more secure in it is being able to predefine applications that are allowed to install and preventing them from being installed. Other than that, all is matchable by any other phone...just a mobile device policy in Exchange and it's set. I know these things because I built the BlackBerry server at my company from scratch...I manage over 100 BB devices. I also built the Exchange environment and manage over 400 devices there (mobile, tablets, etc) and I can tell you right now...anything and everything I can do on the BlackBerry Server as far as mobile phone security goes I can do with ActiveSync save for the application policy I note above.

So if you're including applications in...then heck yes, BB is the most secure...because no one uses apps much in BB.

As for BlackBerry 10, no one knows because they haven't been released to the general public. People have only gotten a sneak peek and God knows that you can't say you know how they are managed on the backend in an enterprise environment based on a sneak peek.
devnet

Mar 06, 2013
1:43 AM EDT
@patrokov

see, your brother probably used a smartphone before. I took my brother in law to the AT&T store and he had no idea about smart phones at all...he had a flip phone from the 1990's. So I didn't ask him what he wanted...I just let him wander the store and play with the phones.

Guess which one he chose? He narrowed it down to the iphone and Lumia 920. He chose the 920. He isn't aware of the stigma that Microsoft has in the mobile market. He's not a techie. He just liked how it worked.

His wife liked it so much she traded her iphone for it. Then her mother traded her iphone for it as well.

I'm telling you this so you know...it goes both ways. Everyone has different tastes...but from my experience, MS really knocked it out of the park with 8 mobile.
shem

Mar 06, 2013
2:30 AM EDT
Huh? RIM/Blackberry secure‽ AFAIR it's the company that allowed various governments around the world full unencrypted access to users encrypted messages...
jdixon

Mar 11, 2013
8:34 AM EDT
> AFAIR it's the company that allowed various governments around the world full unencrypted access to users encrypted messages...

I believe your R is faulty. From what I've read, RIM doesn't have the individual user keys, and can't provide them.
shem

Mar 11, 2013
9:44 AM EDT
A really quick search revealed things like Govt testing RIM India server to intercept BBM, Email

So my R wasn't that bad ;)
jdixon

Mar 11, 2013
10:03 AM EDT
> So my R wasn't that bad

From the article:

"For every enterprise there's a separate secured encryption key with the BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES), which is used for encrypting BlackBerry Email and Messenger services."

So where does it say RIM has the keys in question?

The can intercept the mail all they want, but that doesn't mean RIM can help them decrypt it.

You might want to take a look at this article: http://www.christopher-parsons.com/decrypting-blackberry-sec...

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