CrackBerry put up a great post today detailing the lowdown on the differences between BES and RIM’s more recent alternative BESx. For those of you who aren’t familiar with BES or BESx, the largest and most compelling difference is that BESx is free, while BES can cost thousands of dollars based on how many BlackBerry users you are supporting. There are of course more differences than that and CrackBerry goes on to explain them:

So what are the differences between BES and BESx?

• Cost - BESx is free with unlimited licenses; BES is Cdn $4,799 for software & 20 CALs
  • If you install BESx on the same box as Exchange you’re limited to 75 users
• IT Policy - BES has over 450 IT policies available; BESx has 35 IT policies
  • Unless you’re the CIA 99% of the IT policies you gain in the BES are unnecessary
• High Availability - not available on BESx
  • Simply, High Availability is the ability to have a backup BES ready to go on a different box to automatically pick-up the load if your primary BES goes down
• Enterprise Transporter Tool - not available on BESx
  • If you are a small business don’t feel left out because you can’t have the Enterprise Transporter Tool. You probably won’t have an environment where this tool is actually necessary.
• Support for Blackberry Add-on products - on BESx you can’t have add-on tools like BoxTone or Zenprise. More details to come after WES2010 on BES add-on tools.

BESx has some pretty compelling features that could potentially replace the need for an expensive BES setup. That is of course unless you need an ultra-high security setup for some crazy, covert heist you’re trying to pull. But for the rest of us corporate users, this may work just fine. Hit the read link for the full article from CrackBerry to decide whether BESx is right for you.

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