I see that the term "Blackberry" is probably being used generically here and likely refers to a variety of PDAs / smartphones which include devices made by RIM, Motorola, Palm, HTC and others, including Apple (arguably, the iPhone isn't quite an enterprise email device, but does share some common characteristics). So that said, we have to look at a couple of things... First, RIM devices and some other devices will use a specialized server and communications pathway to deliver and manage communications from the device. For RIM, this is the Blackberry Enterprise Server. Motorola has the Good Mobile Messaging system. Second would be what other means of communicating would be available on the device? RIM devices will typically offer corporate email, personal email (Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.), personal email tied to the telecom carrier (an email address tied to the device), SMS messaging, instant messaging (Yahoo, AOL, etc. as well as PIN-based IM), and PIN to
 PIN messaging. Many PDAs will also enable to user to access some web-based email as well. Oh yeah, they make phone calls too... 

Generally, the managed enterprise email services will provide ability to manage any or all messaging services on the device by setting "policies". In addition, the managed services allow the system administrator to "kill" a lost or stolen device, as well as set security policies for the device. This will typically limit the sorts of messaging allowed and can ensure that certain types of messages are retained.

For PDAs that are not managed, the email delivery method for enterprise email is less controlled and the enterprise has little or no ability to manage anything other than the enterprise messages.

The reason that I go into this long-winded description is that you have to understand the architecture of what you have, then decide what controls are feasible. In general, the managed systems have much more ability to retain all sorts of messages. Typically, they act as an extension of the enterprise email system. The PDAs that simply replicate email are much more challenging and, unless configured properly, may cause email to be lost from the enterprise system.

So my thought would be that any RMS that effectively handles enterprise email will be able to manage messages sent from PDAs, so long as the enterprise maintains control over what email mechanisms are being used to transmit information. Is there seamless integration? I would expect that some do this better than others, but I would suggest that very few RMAs are extensible to a mobile device with full functionality.
 Patrick Cunningham, CRM
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