ActiveSync For Blackberry?

The second week of my holidays is just about to end. Of course these days holidays are really on-line/connected holidays. No broadband yet, as spending a quality time in remote, very little populated areas leaves me with just a bar or two of GPRS/EDGE coverage. I somehow anticipated that, packing a 3 meters long USB extension cord in my luggage, so my Option USB 225 cellular modem could be fixed to a long wooden stick with a duct tape, and placed outside the window in order to catch the precious data packets. I was not able to make or receive phone calls (attaching my mobile phone to the same wooden stick did not work), but s-l-o-w d-a-t-a c-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-o-n was working filling my Inbox and emptying the Outbox.

On the other havd there were days when coverage was working only on the beach and for obvious (sand!) reasons I was not willing to bring the laptop with me. So the Samsung took over the communication tasks. Samsung is a great piece of phone. It has its drawbacks (sound quality is average at best and display is hard to read in full sunlight), but application - wise it does the job. Business keeps on going and our company Exchange Server 2007 keeps on pushing messages via the ActiveSync protocol over the air. During the long strolls along the beautiful and almost virgin beaches of the Słowiński National Park, I contemplated the options of replacing the aging i600. Nokia E71 is one of the options, but still there is the open question whether it supports encrypted messages (during my short tests I failed to read the encrypted mail message despite successfully installing the personal certificate containing my private key). The new iPhone is more of an unknown, as the encrypted s/mime messages are not tested yet (imagine that I have not had my hands down on the new iPod yet!) and I am really not sure how far the virtual keyboard will take me into the irritation and frustration land.

Then there are the BlackBerries. The perfect devices at all angles. But I have ignored them so far for two reasons. No 3G/UMTS and no direct ActiveSync support. The first problem is solved
now with the arrival of the Bold / 9000. The second one could have always been solved by purchasing the BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) or signing up for BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service). Both expensive (very!) and unnecessary (from the technical standpoint) components. We (as many small and not so small companies) are running the Microsoft Exchange 2007 server to handle all business emails, contacts, calendars and more. The Exchange has very simple an reliable way of exchanging and seamlessly synchronizing ActiveSync - based mobile devices (all Windows Mobile - based, Nokia smartphones and iPhones with v2 version of the software). One day I imagined the Blackberry Bold running ActiveSync. yes, this would be the perfect match. The best business mobile device on the Planet working direct with my company infrastructure over plain, universal data access (be it GPRS or EDGE or UMTS/HSDPA or WiFi). The missing link? The software. BlackBerry makes a lot of money selling the servers, so they will not allow their hardwer to bypass their servers. What about the third parties then? Googling a little I found this: http://www.astrasync.com/. Looks promising:

AstraSync establishes a direct https connection between the BlackBerry® Smartphone and the Exchange 2007 or MailSite Fusion server. Customers using AstraSync do not need to purchase a BlackBerry Enterprise Server® and are not dependent on the BlackBerry Internet Service.

But will it deliver? Well... I will be happy to report to you... But this so important piece of software is not available yet. I signed up with my real email address to be notified. And I am waiting for the story to unveil... Hope they make the encrypted messages right. Otherwise I may stick with my Samsung...