I currently have an ATT WinMo phone and a 3rd party exchange account. This setup gives me full OTA email, calendar, tasks, and contact sync for $30/month - $20 for (grandfathered) AT&T unlimited data plan + $10 for exchange hosting.

When I last looked into switching to a Blackberry about a year ago, the Google solution just wasn't good enough - the only way to really get the same OTA functionality was AT&T's BES plan for $45, plus a BES host for $20 (a 120% increase in my bill).

Have things changed enough that I could get most of the OTA function on BIS and without a hosted server?

Most, yes. All, no.

There are still limitations that BIS presents versus BES. That being said, the BIS plan should be able to access your hosted Exchange account the same as the current WinMo device does so you likely wouldn't see any downgrade there and you would only have to upgrade your data plan with ATT, not on the Exchange hosting side.

I understand that I could get my Exchange email using IMAP on the Blackberry, but I thought I needed Activesync for the calendar and tasks. Does the BB have an Activesync equivalent?

You might check into Astrasync. They have a free trial. It is what I use on my BBs. It isnt perfect but has improved significantly over the couple years that I have had it.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/4.7.1.40 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

The BB can use the OWA interface rather than IMAP. It isn't horrible but it still isn't BES.

If you switched to the Google apps you could use their (somewhat limited) BB app for mail as well as the separate apps for syncing calendar and contact info. I don't know what the equivalent for tasks would be.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Astrasync runs Active-Sync over BIS. It syncs mail and calendar and has all of your exchange folders available. You can move mail between folders on the BB and it moves them on the server. The main thing I don't like with it is that it doesn't work well if if you do a lot of email moves while offline.

Reviving this old thread - any changes in the Googleverse that make it more (or less) attractive as a BES replacement?

Thanks.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I have switched to Notifisync for a non-BES solution and I like it a lot. It gives me online access to mail, calendar and contacts updates. I'm extemely happy with it.

One thing to update this thread with:

BES functionality doesn't require a multi-thousand dollar BES and a $45 BES plan any more. I have the BES Express installed on our SBS2003 exchange server (free) and it works with my $30 BIS plan. You get all of the mail, calendar, task, notepad, and contact syncing that you get with a full BES - but not as many policy management options.

On the other hand, if you use Google for your mail host, BIS has improved quite a bit. The mail delivery is nearly instant, and getting contacts & calendar synced is not a problem. No need for the separate gmail app. I have my corporate exchange email and my personal gmail both set up on my blackberry. In terms of functionality they're very very close. I do use the google sync app to bring in multiple calendars to my BB, but if you're just using a single calendar I think (am not certain) BIS will take care of that.

Right - except I'm a one-man company, and I use a hosted exchange service. Near as I can tell, no one offers a hosted BESX service. So I would be stuck with the BES data plan.

Good pointer. Doesn't seem to support the latest BB OS yet.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B405 Safari/531.21.10)

Really? I'm running it on a new 9650 with no problem. Looks like OS v5. What are you using?

Well, the latest v6 having been available to the public for only a couple of days and available on only one device, that is understandable.

BB Torch, running OS v6

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B405 Safari/531.21.10)

Yes, well that's your problem.