INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL

Date: October 4, 2001
Presenter: Victoria Ayala
Affiliation: Research In Motion
On October 4, the ITC hosted Victoria Ayala, a marketing representative of Research in Motion (RIM) - the maker of the Blackberry wireless email device. The company headquarters is located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada - about 100 km west of Toronto. The recent Fast Company article provided a flattering overview of this very innovative company. RIM is one of the few IT companies that is still turning a profit during the current market "recession." The Blackberry wireless device is rapidly becoming a trendy accessory item for "technology addicts."
With permission of the the presenter, the Blackberry presentation has been provided for the ITC as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. To read this file, you will need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Notes from ITC President, Michael Shonka
The ITC meetings offer the speaker an opportunity to present their topic and at the end, the members have an opportunity to engage in an open forum of discussion and ideas. This ITC meeting resulted in the forum evolving an idea and members stepping forward to implement a plan. The topic was wireless email and the plan was how to get it started in Omaha for the individual user or small business owners. Several individuals said they were interested in using the product and an ISP stepped forward to offer connectivity services. The end result is that we now have four of the first ten individuals committed to be Blackberry users. There are six places left before the initial ITC implementation - for those interested, please contact Michael Shonka at 402-397-6231 -or- mshonka@qwest.net for details.
The development of wireless devices for common applications like email and the calendar organizer is a quantum leap in the innovation of work practices and lifestyle. Over 50 people at the ITC meeting on October 4 were presented with an overview of the Blackberry, a wireless email device manufactured by Research In Motion (www.rim.net). The speaker was Victoria Ayala, Commercial Channel Manager for RIM of Waterloo, Ontario. Ms. Ayala travels throughout North America to meet with companies interested in the capabilities of the Blackberry. After visiting several firms in Omaha and a tour of PKI, she was very impressed with the levels of innovation and uses of technology in the community. The adoption and use of the Blackberry would be very practical for many people and firms.
Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions for the mobile communications market. RIM provides solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information including email, calendaring, messaging, Internet and intranet-based applications. The main products of RIM include wireless handhelds, the Blackberry wireless email, embedded radio-modems and software development tools. Ms. Ayala began her presentation with the rationale of RIMs founders for entering the mobile market. The use of email by certain market segments was very heavy and time critical. The use of dial-in modems with heavy laptops was cumbersome. The solution was a handheld device that could be supported by IT departments for enterprise solutions and was operable - out of the box - for individuals.
The IT departments required a highly secured device, central administration, filtering for standardization, integration into the enterprise email systems, national coverage, remote support, provide asset management tools, be easy to use and meet users needs. The Blackberry provides these attributes and has third party developers providing additional applications as requirements expand.
The Blackberry works on the Motient (800 MHz) and Mobitex(900 MHz) packet radio networks with claims of 95% coverage over the U.S. The system is designed to store the message until the signal is available and then transmit. The device is *always on* so communication is near real time. The structure of the packet radio network is highly reliable and allows for many users at the same time. During the September 11, 2001 disaster in New York City, messages on the Blackberry communications system were getting through while the wired and wireless voice networks were over burdened or inoperable.
The two most common models of the Blackberry have up to 5 MB of memory. The memory is sufficient to store over a thousand of typically straight text email messages. Download times are optimized by sending only the first 2 KB of the message to the device so the user has a choice about handling the rest of the message or attachments. The mail exchange will hold the attachments or they can be downloaded for wired connectivity to desktop computers, printers or fax machines.
The end user has a choice of a small pager size or a PDA style device. The email administrator has the option of the Blackberry exchange software on Microsoft or Lotus Notes servers with a Unix flavor coming soon. The server to end user connection goes through a Blackberry relay facility which hands off the message to the packet radio network. The connection from corporate network to the user can be provided with Triple DES encryption technology for sensitive communication.
The most significant attribute of the Blackberry is probably the impact on work practices and lifestyle. The early adopters of the service have often been corporate leadership, office nomads, and road warriors. With the Blackberry, an idle moment waiting in line is now an opportunity to check email. The *always on* capability means anyone can reach you anywhere at anytime and you can choose your to response activity; answer, delay or ignore. One drawback from user's perspective is that you become accessible at awkward times, such as during vacation.
There was a noticeable interest level during the Q&A session. Those who are PDA users readily see the increased utility of having a seemless integration of email from the desktop to the hip. The convergence of the PDA, two way paging, email and mobile voice technologies appears to be the next evolution. The blending of all those functions into one device that can be connected to corporate networks or the Internet is a few years into the future - but the vision is there now.
Those interested in using Blackberry services through a local service, contact Michael Shonka at 402-397-6231 -or- mshonka@qwest.net. The initial service requires ten users - so far four ITC members have expressed interest.