How sad... After years using Windows Mobile devices, Rod Drury bought a RIM Blackberry.

Rod says that he's been waiting an always-on e-mail solution for Windows Mobile for years now. But even though a few of us tried to talk him out of this idea, he went ahead and bought a Blackberry device.

Now, don't take me wrong, the RIM Blackberry does the e-mail work really well. But I can't see a thriving developer community behind the platform, like the ones we see supporting the Windows Mobile and Palm OS ecosystem.

It's a shame - so close, now that Microsoft and partners have announced a wide range of new devices supporting the new Messaging and Security Feature Pack that provides the Direct Push technology - hey Rod, no need for a third party service, or additional hardware and software on your server farm.

I can only say that this solution is really close now. I have been using a beta version of this software for a couple of months already and it's great - e-mails arrive on my Pocket PC Phone Edition before my Outlook client on the desktop shows the new message notification!

By the way, we will have an article about this sometime soon...