The BlackBerry wireless e-mail solution is quite simple in design. Essentially when a message arrives in a user's Exchange mailbox it is picked up by the BlackBerry Enterprise Server which is constantly monitoring all BlackBerry enabled user mailboxes. That message is then retrieved, compressed, encrypted and subsequently sent via the Internet to the wireless network. The e-mail sent is not readable text and is only decrypted at the destination user's BlackBerry handheld. The e-mail is then sent to the handheld via the wireless network at which point it is decrypted, decompressed and then immediately available on the device. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server supports triple DES security (considered unbreakable) so confidential data is transmitted securely.
When sending e-mail from the BlackBerry device the reverse applies. Before an e-mail is sent it is compressed, encrypted and sent to the BlackBerry server over the Internet via the wireless network. The server then decrypts, decompresses and then places the e-mail it into the Outbox. In effect this message is no different from any message being composed from a PC using Outlook. A copy is even placed in the Sent Items folder!
The BlackBerry Enterprise server uses MAPI to communicate with the user's Inbox. One advantage of MAPI is the immediate notification of arriving messages. This is crucial for the "push" architecture that instantly sends (or pushes) a copy of e-mail that arrives in the Inbox. In contrast, the "pull" model requires the user to connect to a server and request messages to be downloaded on a regular basis, which is not a "real-time" solution.
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