If I remember correctly, BES is free if you have just 1 user & it runs well in a virtual environment. If you decide to go that route you'll need to have the user's service provider push out the BES package to them opposed to the BIS pkg that ships standard with all Blackberries. 

Ashley Shillinger
Research Tech Support Facility & GLBRC
Michigan State University T: 517-353-6794
Systems Administrator F: 517-355-6758
202D Biochemistry Bldg E: [log in to unmask]
 

On Jul 18, 2011, at 9:59 AM, Doerr, Chris wrote:

Here at the Physical Plant, we can’t support the BIS option due to having to either use domain credentials outside the domain, or needing yet another set of logins.  So keep that in mind.  Nick is correct about the 3rd party apps though.  We can only really allow Notifysync and it is terrible.  When users get updates from BB or Notifysync, and they don’t do things in just the right order, everything breaks and calendar appointments start sending out cancelations.
 
Chris Doerr
(517) 353-4777  Physical Plant Hotilne
(517) 432-0225  voice
 
From: Kwiatkowski, Nicholas [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 9:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Getting a Blackberry to talk to Exchange 2010?
 
Al,
 
Most likely their cellular provider offers a “BIS” service (Blackberry Internet Service).  This is essentially a BES in the cloud, and is offered for the same charge as the BES connectivity.  When they get their login to the BIS, they would make a connection to your OWA/ActiveSync service and it would be seemless, just like any other device.
 
The only issue people report on certain providers (Verizon), is that calendars don’t sync properly – that may need to be done manually via a desktop hot-sync every so often.
 
I would avoid steering the end user to 3rd party apps like NotifySync and AstraSync.  They are horrible and often break the device and its functionality.
 
-Nick Kwiatkowski
MSU Telecom Systems
 
From: Al Puzzuoli [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 7:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MSUNAG] Getting a Blackberry to talk to Exchange 2010?
 
I have one user who has a Blackberry Torch. The phone is apparently running version 6 of the OS. What are my options for getting this to sync with our Exchange server? For one user, I don’t see the point of messing with something like BES, but I’m not finding any other way to do this that I really like. Seems like this should be easier.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Al