[hrbuckley]

It seems BIS has reached the end of useful life. The compression is certainly nice, but the main reason for it, to give a unified connection environment world wide, is no longer needed. In fact from a developer (or power user) point of view the multiple connection methods was becoming or had become difficult to handle, and confusing for the average user. One could argue that what we have now is no less confusing, but aiharkness seems to have captured it quite well. Over time it will sort itself out.

This is not the only change introduced with BB10 that will not be universally hailed as a good decision. The PIN number as a usable address is also, apparently, on the way out. This is being replaced by the BBID. There are many benefits to this. You take your BBID with you as you move from one device to another; the BBID can span multiple classes of device (phone and tablet), so in theory push data could go to your phone and your tablet in the future. The down side is that, since the BBID is essentially an email address, having a separate messaging protocol built around it to replace PIN-to-PIN messaging doesn't make much sense. So PIN-to-PIN is noticeable by its absence from BB10 (people have reported the Z10 can still receive, but not send, PIN-to-PIN). This has also made some people unhappy.

Because BB10 devices don't need BIS, you don't need a special plan from the carrier. This may be good or bad for an individual depending on needs and what is offered by local carriers. For most personal BlackBerry users I think it is overall an improvement.