[dyzs]

T-Mobile is about to make major changes to their BWC/BIS service. What's going on over here?

BIS Upgrade???

[Jase88]

http://www.t-mobile.com/bisupgrade/

It looks like a positive change. The way I read it, they're basically providing a BES-like experience for webclient users by enabling better integration with external email accounts.

They're elminating the need for a webclient by moving features to the handheld. And making your email storage unlimited.

[dkf747]

I'm wondering how the yahoo mail option thhat is mentioned will work?

[deezmfnutz]

Originally Posted by dkf747

I'm wondering how the yahoo mail option thhat is mentioned will work?

Very interesting, t-mobile may screw-up many accounts on October 2 and make peoples lives a living hell. We need more information on exactly how and what they are doing? Does anyone from t-mobile have any "inside" info that they can share?

[dyzs]

Originally Posted by Jase88

http://www.t-mobile.com/bisupgrade/

It looks like a positive change. The way I read it, they're basically providing a BES-like experience for webclient users by enabling better integration with external email accounts.

They're elminating the need for a webclient by moving features to the handheld. And making your email storage unlimited.

If you hover over where I typed "BIS Upgrade" you'll notice I posted that link there.

[lignumaqua]

This looks like a major downgrade for those of us who don't want to fully integrate their mail accounts. The loss of Auto BCC seems like a real problem. How do I get copies of sent mail from the BB without having to manually insert a BCC in every one? A real pain.

[Jase88]

Originally Posted by lignumaqua

This looks like a major downgrade for those of us who don't want to fully integrate their mail accounts. The loss of Auto BCC seems like a real problem. How do I get copies of sent mail from the BB without having to manually insert a BCC in every one? A real pain.

That's the point: If the Blackberry has better integration with external email accounts, then auto BCC is redundant. Your sent messages will already be in the external email account--no need to BCC.

[Von Maestro]

Any word on if/when these changes will take effect with the other carriers...?

[vinniet]

One good feature will show the correct sent-from email address. Its a pain now if you send business and personal email and can only have one send from address.

[lignumaqua]

Originally Posted by Jase88

That's the point: If the Blackberry has better integration with external email accounts, then auto BCC is redundant. Your sent messages will already be in the external email account--no need to BCC.

Well - that assumes you WANT integration. I don't. (Actually the only way it could synchronise sent mail with a standard POP account is to have a hidden BCC anyway so they end up in your IN folder - that's not really integration)

I forward all my mail to my Blackberry through a GMail account - that cleans up all the Spam extremely well (nothing worse than spam on a Blackberry...) and gets rid of the annoying 15 minute delay you get if you let the BB go and fetch it. I then reply from the BB through my normal account and send a BCC to myself for sent mail. A filter in my email client then puts it into the Sent folder. Works great.

Forcing me to integrate means I'll either have to integrate with my main account (which I won't do - I hate that 15 minute delay) or I'll have to set up a parallel GMail acccount or two to deal with it. Either way it's a real pain when a simple BCC does it so easily.

We have insufficient information to go on. The promise is full integration with existing e-mail. But that clearly isn't possible with a POP account - so what do they REALLY mean?

Mike

[jomalley]

Since it appears that they're dumping the RIM portal site for BIS, I wonder if the new BIS site will display properly on more web browsers than IE and Opera?

Joe

[Steve]

I'm sure all this means the new BIS site will be purely informational. All the functions will be accessed directly from your handheld, not any PC browser.

Steve

[CyberJack]

Lignumaqua:
Huh? I am confused on what gets lost, if you have your ProviderA's email forwarded to GMail and then reply to those messages with the Sender being Provider A. Why are you saying that you'll be forced to run a separate G Mail account in parallel. You may be onto a salient point, but I am confused on what the issue is.

[Concept]

Since yahoo is going to have push email for the BB, hopefully gmail will offer the push mail pretty soon.

[deezmfnutz]

Originally Posted by Concept

Since yahoo is going to have push email for the BB, hopefully gmail will offer the push mail pretty soon.

Gmail, already offers push for blackberry with their forward fuctions....

[lignumaqua]

Originally Posted by CyberJack

Lignumaqua:
Huh? I am confused on what gets lost, if you have your ProviderA's email forwarded to GMail and then reply to those messages with the Sender being Provider A. Why are you saying that you'll be forced to run a separate G Mail account in parallel. You may be onto a salient point, but I am confused on what the issue is.

The problem comes with a reply sent from the BB - How do I get a copy of that mail Sent from my BB back into Provider A's mailbox and therefore back into my Sent folder in my desktop e-mail client? The only way I know to do this with POP mail is to Auto BCC it back - and that is going away unless you manually add a BCC to every message (a pain!).

So - I was thinking I could use another GMail account and set it as the 'integrated' account with the BB account. We don't yet know what 'integrated' means with POP accounts but I'm guessing that all it means is they still do an Auto BCC but you can't change who it goes to - it always goes to the 'integrated' account.

If that's the case (and it is an 'IF' at this stage as we don't have enough information yet) then I can just forward mail from this 'sent mail' GMail account back to Provider A. That way I stay the same as now without integrating Provider A (which I don't want to do for reasons already stated)

[T-Roy]

The problem with forwarding now becomes that you cannot reconcile messages.
Integration with Yahoo will allow you to delete once.

[PCW]

This is a great step in the right direction. Cudos to T-Mobile for being the first to deploy these new features and capabilities.

Can we expect to see similar implementations by Verizion? Or Sprint? Or Cingular? Or Nextel? Or Rogers? etc...

[WNO]

I may be overly suspicious, but the way the notice is written leads me to believe there's a lot of spin going on. The changes do appear to benefit users of Yahoo, which is apparently TMO's new service of choice. As others have pointed out, though, there might actually be a net loss of function for those of us using different setups, particularly forwarding to the account.

I have only one low-traffic ISP account actually integrated with the BWC. The rest of my mail comes through the redirector for corporate mail, through Gmail forwarding, and through an auto-forwarding app that picks up my Hotmail and e-mail from other personal accts. My sent-from and auto-BCC are set to Gmail. After the change, I suppose I'll have to lose my Gmail forwarding and set up POP integration in order to retain my sent mail in that acct (and, unless we retain the ability to set a default "sent from" addr, to avoid having reply recipients learn my blackberry.net addr). I will also have to set up my auto-forwarding app to send my mail to Gmail rather than directly to my blackberry.net addr. So, for all of those accts, it looks like I'll be back on the BIS polling schedule, up to a 15 min wait. It is also worth pointing out that Gmail POP has had a few weird glitches, at least early on.

I suppose I could have Gmail and the auto-forwarding app direct my mail to Yahoo, but then Yahoo would become the repository for my sent mail (no auto bcc option to send it elsewhere) as well as my new "sent from" addr. And if, for some reason, I was using Hotmail to store my auto bcc sent mail, I guess I'd be out of luck, since I don't see any indication that TMO is lifting its restriction on Hotmail integration, which would be the only way to get sent mail there.

Seems like a real coup for Yahoo at the expense of the other major free e-mail providers. I don't yet have a clear picture of how the improvements to standard integration will work, but I'm not sure at this point that they will offset the apparent loss of functionality for those of us forwarding mail to our blackberry.net addrs

[NeilDK]

I would love to hear some input on PCW's question. Can we expect to see this change at other carriers. I am Cingular and I would love to see such a change.