Travel Technology - Recommendations for a new PDA type phone

I use a Blackberry 8700 and am very happy with it. My boss wants a pda type phone with a full qwerty keyboard that will be used primarily for his schedule and appointments. he does not want email pushed to the device, just to be able to see his schedule on the device.
he want to be able to have his secretary add appointments to his day from her computer and then have the appointment show up on his wireless.

he also want to be able to make changes on his wireless and have them reflect on her computer.

can this be done?
anyone recommend a device to do this?

Thanks

What does he use for his appointments? Outlook? Do you have an exchange server?

The Blackberry could do this, and so could most recent Windows mobile devices. You don't HAVE to use email on the Blackberry. With a Blackberry and Blackberry enterprise server (or third party access to one) or a Windows mobile device with a recent exchange server you get 2-way contacts and appointments synced in realtime.

scott,

we would be starting from scratch.

we would set up some exchange server.

what is the easiest and cheepest way to do this?

thanks
Ari

Well; an exchange server from scratch is gonna cost you...

If it is just one (or a few) user(s) then I'd suggest outsourcing it to someone like 4smartphone.net who offer over-the-air exchange services for Windows mobile, or mailstreet.com who offer it for the Blackberry AND Windows Mobile.

If you really want to keep it in house then you'd be looking at around $1000 in hardware, $900 in software (Microsoft windows 2003 small business server), then the time and effort to install and configure exchange AND find someone to manage the thing...

It isn't brain surgery, but it isn't as easy as setting up a machine with XP.

Once exchange is running you'll also need to get the mobile devices running on it. PLUS you'll need a business level internet connection to hook it up to.

So; like I said, if you can get away with it, outsource it. It's secure to outsource, and companies like mailstreet deal with corporate users every day and should be able to help you out just fine.

just called up mailstreet.com and we are all set up

thanks scott