Mobile working Toolkit

Secrets of the enterprise smartphone

Tags:
BlackBerry,
Symbian,
Windows Mobile,
Cost

Andrew Donoghue ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 27 May 2009 11:25 BST

...enterprise sales, or an indication that the phone's relentless consumer bias is limiting its corporate appeal. Apple also had a respectable share of the smartphone operating system market with 20 percent of users claiming to use it compared to just 15 percent for smartphone stalwart Symbian.

When asked directly whether their company was planning to adopt the iPhone, nearly half of respondents — 49 percent — answered in the negative. The good news for Apple is that 22 percent of respondents were either already using the iPhone or had plans to adopt it.

Has your company considered deploying iPhones?

Those who dismiss the iPhone say that expense is the chief motivator in 53 percent of cases. Other factors that proved a turn-off included lack of full support for Microsoft Exchange (despite Apple's efforts in this area); ease of management; and a lack of security around the iPhone.

Why is your company not considering deploying iPhones?

Other reasons given for iPhone rejection include the lack of a traditional mini-Qwerty keyboard, the perceived fragility of the device and a dislike of operator 02, which currently has the monopoly on iPhone sales in the UK Some respondents also made it clear that they were against all things Apple: in an industry supposedly based on logic and analysis, brand-based feelings can run very hot and cold.

Respondents were also asked what would need to change to allow the iPhone into their organisation, assuming cost and corporate policy were not issues. One reason given was the difficulty in managing and updating multiple iPhones. "The reason we are not going ahead with iPhone solution is the central management that is not available if you have too many of them. Distribution of these phones and locking and unlocking them is not possible in the current OS/solution," one respondent said. "If these functions were there we could have considered them — especially given that everyone from our staff has either got one or is planning to get it."

Other respondents came back to Apple's lack of history in the enterprise. "Apple's image is of a consumer-market-orientated company, not corporate at the moment," said one public-sector IT professional. Another noted that "the iPhone is not considered a serious business tool and is therefore unlikely to be adopted".

The iPhone aside, other issues raised in the survey included the most popular applications for smartphones. Unsurprisingly email leads the pack with 93 percent of respondents, followed by calendering and contacts. Web browsing and instant messaging also proved popular with 46 percent and 31 percent of respondents respectively, which may be down to the influence of the iPhone and the work done by Apple to make browsing a much more user-friendly experience.

Which mobile applications are most important to your staff?

Overall, it appears as if the smartphones are breaking out of the 'only-for-the-suits' niche they occupied. That said, many companies are still conservative when it comes to anything that smacks of consumer frippery, with the usability of the iPhone almost counting against it in some circles, where seriousness goes hand in hand with complexity and a poorly thought-out user-interface.

While phone makers and users adjust to the shake-up wrought by Apple, another is surely on its way in the shape of Linux and Google's Android operating system, which promises to bring some of the smart thinking around applications but at a much lower cost than the iPhone: a potentially winning combination, given the state of most IT budgets for the foreseeable future.