BES & Activesync Pricing

[billb3]

Just curious why the choice was made to charge for Activesync, but not BES capabilities?

[florian]

1. Scalix ActiveSync is based on a licensed version of the spec from MSFT. As mentioned earlier on the forums, they get a tiny share of each user sold, so we must charge for it, otherwise we'd be losing money.

2. BES Connector is not really free of charge; it's included with Enterprise Edition and Hosting Edition, it's a paid-for option for Small Business Edition, it is not available on Community Edition. On all editions, it's available for Premium Users only, where ActiveSync licenses can be applied to Standard Users too.

This means that in most cases, and especially if you take the required BES Server, CALs, extra server hardware and Windows server OS, Blackberry Enterprise Subscription with your carrier into account, a BES user will be more expensive than a AS user; even on the Scalix side that could be the case as we sell the AS licenses for very little money. It is in some way reflecting what is seen in the market - ActiveSync is becoming the commodity push email solution, no special plan required with the carrier, available on many and almost all new smartphone devices; Blackberry is kinda the "Higher End" solution, typically used by senior management, executives and similar, or in large enterprises. Our product structure is setup to reflect this.

I think all in all we are very competitive with our mobile offerings now....

Florian.

[billb3]

I appreciate the reply, was just curious...thank you.

I think all in all we are very competitive with our mobile offerings now....

Absolutely! I don't believe we will deploy BES, but AS has been received very well in our organization.