Which is the best smartphone for business?

• Tags:
• BlackBerry,
• Smartphone,
• IPhone

Suzanne Tindal ZDNet Australia

Published: 28 May 2009 12:15 BST

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...among the more entrenched BlackBerry and Nokia devices. At internet service provider iiNet, only executives and some senior management have smartphones hooked up to the corporate network, according to the organisation's chief technology officer Greg Bader.

Bader says the executives mostly have BlackBerrys, but that there are a few iPhones fostered by the managing director Michael Malone's fondness for Apple. "Most have BlackBerry because they've been using them for a number of years," Bader says. "We don't really worry about all the gimmicking."

Since smartphones are a productivity tool, people were likely to choose a device they were familiar with, he says. "At the moment it's iPhones and BlackBerrys."

Bader personally is an exception, having leant on the IT department to let him trial an HTC Touch. "I'm a geek so I like gadgets," he says. "The iPhone's too common."

Yet as Jetstar chief information officer Stephen Tame tells ZDNet.com.au, the more individual a company allows its employees to be in a device sense, the more patching is necessary for the IT department, which is the reason firms will often choose to keep to their standard fleet — usually the BlackBerry. However, Tame refuses to consider BlackBerry because its proprietary back-end rules out having other devices connecting to the same hardware. He believes it makes no sense to have two systems running.

Jetstar's smartphones are 80 percent Nokia E71s and 20 percent iPhones, according to Tame. His personal choice is the Nokia E71, which he calls "bulletproof" and is his personal device, not just his workhorse. Jetstar's chief financial offier and the head of airports also use the Nokia, but the commercial directors and the chief executive have opted for the iPhone, Tame says.

The organisation had previously been running the Windows Mobile-based iMate, but had encountered issues with reliability, Tame says. There are still some of the devices floating around, which have been passed on by executives to middle management, but there are no significant pockets of any other phone, he says, despite the fact that he has tried to keep device choice open as long as it is priced fairly and is easy to operate.

Telecommunications carrier PacNet is the exception to the iPhone rule, according to chief executive Bill Barney, who says that its corporate fleet is purely BlackBerry, although people do carry around other devices for personal use. The company has used HTC for three years, but recently switched, Barney says. Roaming is easier using the BlackBerry when compared to the HTC device, but the HTC devices have synchronisation problems and data-transmission issues.

Barney confesses himself to be a fully converted BlackBerry fan since the switch from HTC. None of the executives mention the Omnia and none have seen any Androids appearing in the organisation as work phones, despite the original furore around the device.

This could change, with Vodafone and 3 about to release the next-generation Android phone from HTC, the Magic, adding to Optus's release of the first-generation HTC Dream.

Yet Gartner research director Robin Simpson does not think so. The analyst believes Android will suffer the same problems as Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile, Gartner believes, relies on individual device manufacturers to make the package work and look attractive, which often they fail to do. Instead they achieve an effect that is "a little bit old-fashioned", to Simpson's mind. Also, the Android devices Simpson has seen so far have not been particularly sexy, he says.

Another problem is that manufacturers try to add features to make a phone based on a common operating system different, which makes it a nightmare for applications developers and enterprise IT teams who do not want to have to think about patching many different versions of the same thing. Novosel does not think Android will take off just yet, but for different reasons. Android is still on first-generation devices, Novosel says. When the next generations come around, people will start to be more interested, he believes.

As for device manufacturers in general, Gartner's Simpson believes the smaller ones will really struggle over the next few years, while larger ones such as Nokia have to make sure it is easy to do business tasks such as synchronise email and then style their devices like designers, not engineers.

Novosel points out Nokia's attempts to make it possible for a lot more of its phones to easily set up mail. This could aid the brand in the business market, but he believes it is too early to call. He also believes that there will definitely be room for other smartphone manufacturers to grow in the market.

Novosel believes the BlackBerry will continue to do "extremely well" as the company is devoting a lot of attention to research and development. Gartner's Simpson agrees that it will carry on with its performance, saying that harder economic times will bring people to buy brands they trust, such as the BlackBerry.

It seems the corporate world's love affair with the BlackBerry is not quite at an end.

Credit: What's the best business smartphone? from ZDNet Australia

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