Blackberry Storm

Rarely do we come out and say, don't do this. But this case we need to make an exception. The exception is Blackberry. While they make a great Enterprise phone solution and a pretty darn good single phone solution, they really don't have a good small business solution. They have 3 options for small business and all of them have major draw backs.

I also want to draw particular attention to the Storm. This is the new touch screen Blackberry that is advertised on billboards all over town. It looks like an iPhone. It looks pretty cool, but the technology was released a bit early. I'm seeing pleas for help all over the newsgroups, articles and blog posts are full of issues and important missing features.

Screen doesn't lock when in a call

The not-so perfect Storm

From the newsgroups: Requires firmware upgrade to fix initial problems at release, unable to use e-mail signature, really poor battery life, keyboard difficult to get used to.

From local usergroup: Purchaser reported that he had to take it back 3 times to get one that worked. Once he did, he immediately sold it because he no longer trusted it.

I'm sure RIM will get those resolved eventually and make the Storm live up to its promise, but I haven't heard anything about making the Blackberry a great small business solution yet. There are better choices out there. Ask us which phones have the fewest issues and the lowest support costs. We see most of them.

Teaching at Baker College

I will be teaching a course a Baker College in Auburn Hills this winter in ISA. In addition to the prescribed curriculum I intend to bring real world experience into the classroom. So students will learn not just the what, but also why and when to apply a particular security solution. ISA is a very flexible product as such it can be used as a club or with finesse. :) I hope that the students will leave the classroom with a sense that not only is ISA a great firewall but it is a great business tool as well.

I'm really looking forward to helping bring qualified IT people into the area in the hope that they will be able to think "business" as they apply their IT solution. The market is currently flooded with bad IT people that either want to put every business into the same mold, have skills that are far out of date or have no head for business what so ever. In this little way, I hope to change that.