back to article The Dread Server BlackBerry Enterprise is no more

BES, the TLA that has struck trepidation into BOFHs for a decade, is no more. The brand name has been discarded in the biggest rationalisation of the company’s product lines in the company’s history. BlackBerry's product reorganisation leaves almost no part of its enterprise portfolio untouched. Practically every product that …

  1. NotBob

    So it's been renamed, is it any easier to work with?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What brand of jam is that in the picture?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No idea, but looks like setting point was never achieved or it's got far to much glucose syrup muck in it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What brand of jam is that in the picture?

      Caviar. That's the trouble with life today, bloody blackberry jam tastes of fish.

    3. Triggerfish

      Looks like the homemade stuff my neighbour used to make in big copper pots. No brand has come close since.

    4. Glenturret Single Malt

      I tyhought at first it was Blackberry Pi.

  3. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Not too fearful

    The trick to BES was to go take one of the admin classes that RIM/Blackberry offered. Once they explained how all the parts fit together and worked, and you got to play with it a bit in the lab, it wasn't too hard to setup and run a BES server back home.

    Without the class, and with only the manuals and forums to guide you, yeah, that would be daunting.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not too fearful

      Training? Yeah, I remember doing some of that (not BES-related, admittedly). My corporate employers in the 1980s/1990s used to think it was important, and even used to pay for it. More recently, different employers with different priorities, which haven't included technical training for a decade or so. 'Ethics training', yes, but allegedly they had to put everyone through that as part of a deal with the Serious Fraud Office.

      1. Sloppy Crapmonster

        Re: Not too fearful

        Good way to disprove a point, by arguing against something completely unrelated, anonymously.

        1. Mephistro
          Devil

          Re: Not too fearful (@ Sloppy Crapmonster)

          I think that the point the OP was trying to disprove is that nowadays a sysadmin has a chance bigger than a snowflake in a nuclear blast of receiving training for a new product, paid for the company he/she is working for. If you disagree with this, you should either a) get out more and meet more people or b) keep on slowly destroying the company you work for and asking for more bonuses.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "so. 'Ethics training', yes, but allegedly they had to put everyone through that "

        The Ethics paper for AAT membership lasts 2 hours.

        I finished it in 15 minutes.

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: "so. 'Ethics training', yes, but allegedly they had to put everyone through that "

          Impressive. Now tell me how long it took you to assemble this AAT.

        2. Danny 14

          Re: "so. 'Ethics training', yes, but allegedly they had to put everyone through that "

          The trick to BES was to give the management android phones with full access to their exchange mail and calendar. Then you didnt need BES or blackberry.

        3. David 132 Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: "so. 'Ethics training', yes, but allegedly they had to put everyone through that "

          The Ethics paper for AAT membership lasts 2 hours.

          I finished it in 15 minutes.

          Pshaw! For my employer-mandated ethics training, I bribed an illegal immigrant to take it on my behalf. Even got extra credit.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Pshaw!" " I bribed an illegal immigrant to take it on my behalf."

            I am the OP. My cap is duly doffed sir.

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Pirate Dave Re: Not too fearful

      Agreed, I'm a bit puzzled by the line ".....It was complex and unloveable...." - it didn't seem any more complex than a multitude of other products back in the day, definitely nowhere near as tedious as, say, Java's constant updates and security holes, and having it on its own dedicated server/router actually made it easier to manage as you didn't have to worry about an update for BES breaking something else.

      1. defiler

        Re: Pirate Dave Not too fearful

        @ Matt Bryant

        Yes, its own dedicated server made problems nicely contained and isolated. However, with the people I worked for at the time, if the BES was off then it was wailing and gnashing of teeth. Seriously, everything else could have been gold-plated and diamond-encrusted. Every sandwich could have been server with an extra eclair. Every coffee with a free blowjob. But if the BES were off, the world was ending and it was my personal problem to deal with it.

        Frankly, the rest of the network could have been on fire, but so long as the BES was up, these narcissistic dicks didn't mind.

        (Our BESs were pretty rock-solid, but fuck them anyway for the bad memories.)

        1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
          Pirate

          Re: Pirate Dave Not too fearful

          @defiler

          yep, same here. I used to theorize that the smallest measurable time division in the Universe was that ultra-brief instant of time between when the BES server went down and when the President darkened my doorway asking when his Blackberry would start getting emails again.

          We got a BES because said President was given a BB for Christmas by his wife so they could "keep in touch" while he was at work. And it just so happened that was right after Blackberry and Novell teamed-up to give away 10-user BES licenses for free to Groupwise shops, which we were at the time. So I got to spend a week near lovely Cleveland, OH learning how to install and run BES from an actual BB employee/trainer. A year later, our BES user count was up to 4, most of which were VPs. A year after that (after the iPhone came out), it tumbled down to just one VP. I kept that BES going until 2014 when we migrated from Groupwise to Office365, and told that remaining VP that we could no longer support her BB after that.

          It was a fun ride at times. I gotta admit, BES was decently reliable software.

  4. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Cue BB phone hacking news in 3, 2, 1...

    “Simply unlocking the phone grants transparent access to services without requiring a password.”

    Maybe. Maybe not.

  5. Mage Silver badge

    So what could go wrong?

    “Simply unlocking the phone grants transparent access to services without requiring a password,” BlackBerry explains.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Really?

    Who puts that much jam on their toast? Disgraceful.

  7. J. R. Hartley

    Gotta hand it to Blackberry

    They've really managed to 'turn the company round' in record time. Irving Gould would be proud.

  8. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    So still a pretty impressive system. And still Canadian

    So not quit under the thumb of the NSA.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: So still a pretty impressive system. And still Canadian

      Two words: Five Eyes.

  9. Mandoscottie

    may you burn horrible in the underworld B.E.S.

    yaaay may you rest in pieces you horrible horrible pos.!

    I dont miss it one bit!! only thing I actually was happy corp moved to iphones for.

    1. Unicornpiss
      Meh

      Re: may you burn horrible in the underworld B.E.S.

      Our company had two of them--one for execs and one for mere mortals' email. Despite this article, we had very little trouble overall with ours. (and we were on Lotus Notes at the time) They just ran, and adding/removing/managing users was pretty easy. True, it was not my job to keep them running.

      We had far less hassle and aggravation with them than with our current "Airwatch" for managing i-stuff.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RIP BES

    It will still live at my home as long as there is a connection to the Blackberry APN.

    It never let me down the last 15 Years. It never failed. My phone was and is connected to my home safe and at any time.

    All my actions I do on my mobile appear to the world as if I was located in my office

    I have a permantent VPN to my home even if network connection is only 2G

    I have ssh as if I was located at home to all systems I manage

    I have all connectivity like mail, fax, voip

    My phone runs 36hrs+

    If I loose my phone, I get another one, activate it, and get everything back including precious passwords, favorite locations, browser bookmarks, within one hour, even, If I am location 1000 miles away.

    I see the the location of my phone on a map, nobody involved but my own IT

    the Blackberry application firewall protects my privacy

    Now, what other system could give me this functionality? Tell me, I buy it. Otherwise I will stay with BESv5.

  11. GrumpyKiwi

    BES Difficult???

    I never had any problems with setup or operation of any of the BES servers I did for clients. If you knew what you were doing it all just worked.

    Biggest problems I ever had was talking clients through the terror of activating their handset.

  12. Pretty Ricky

    Ah, BlackBerry BES. The memories... While it may seem unthinkable now, there was a time not that long ago when BlackBerrys were the bees' knees. Once you got your mind around the BlackBerry way of doing things it wasn't so complex. Lots of it even made sense, so long as you look at it in historical context. Heady days, when we BB admins ruled the world!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    BES is fine

    Poor BOFH always blame their, ahem, 'tools'.

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