iPhone Takes Bite Out of BlackBerry; 44% to Support iPhone in 09
by Yves Neidlinger on 10/05/09 at 11:52 am
Yves Neidlinger is a technologist and a social media and marketing consultant. He is the National Channel Manager for Navara and the founder and Editor in Chief of iPhoneCTO.
Who would have thought that a company has historically shunned the enterprise is making inroads, not with their computers, but with their phones. Steve Jobs is notorious (among other things) for his disdain for corporate America’s rigid and less than progressive view of IT. Apple’s long history in education notwithstanding, they have happily left the enterprise market to IBM and Microsoft and focused their efforts on consumer products.
In less than two years, iPhone is making its presence felt in the cubicles and boardrooms across America. As a site dedicated to tracking iPhone’s evolution from a consumer to enterprise device, we’ve been covering this trend for the past six months. BusinessWeek recently published a story validating what we have been seeing; companies are becoming less resistant to adopting iPhones and IT, begrudgingly, offering to support them.
A number of surveys the past few months have revealed how iPhone is viewed by corporate America. A consulting firm, Osterman Research published a survey revealing that not only did 20% of companies support iPhone in 2008, but 44% would offer support in 09. That’s nearly 50% of large and midsize companies in less than two years providing iPhone enterprise support. Not only that, but support for RIM’s BlackBerry dropped to 75%.
The biggest obstacle that is often cited impeding widespread iPhone adoption is the lack of enterprise class device management tools such as remote wipe, enforce security policies, over the air installation, et al. The fact of the matter is that remote wipe was added in iPhone OS 2.0 and enterprise mobility management companies such as Trust Digital have solutions that already address many of these shortcomings.
Just last month, Forrester Research backtracked on an earlier report and has given iPhone a thumbs up for enterprise readiness. In fact, they went so far as to say that iPhone was a better business device than BlackBerry. Personally, I have mixed feelings about that statement. As versatile and user friendly as the iPhone is, if email is your killer app, iPhone may not be the best device because it doesn’t have a physical keyboard. That being said, Forrester found that iPhone users were more willing to access corporate data and were happier overall.
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