iPhone found ready for enterprise, better than BlackBerry

[AppleInsider]

A close study has shown that opening the doors to iPhones at large-scale business has not only made workers happier but has often saved money over competing smartphones in the process.

In a report issued last week, Ted Schadler of Forrester Research has presented an about-face for the research group's attitude towards iPhones that recommends businesses consider the devices for their network and that many users are genuinely more interested in accessing work content on an iPhone than on corporate mainstays using Microsoft or Research in Motion software. Using the web is a "chore" on a BlackBerry but intuitive on an iPhone, Schadler writes, and many workers are ultimately happier when they can pick their phones instead of having that choice dictated by IT.

Where Forrester had previously warned companies to avoid iPhones when possible due to the high phone prices and lack of security, it now says that many of these legacy worries have been softened significantly in the wake of Apple's iPhone 2.x firmware and uses Amylin Pharmaceutical, Kraft Foods, and Oracle as examples of how permitting the phones ultimately helped their respective bottom lines.

Amylin's senior IT director Todd Stewart describes iPhones as being easier to support than "other mobile platforms" and that iPhone 2.0's hooks for Exchange calendaring and e-mail meant it only took three days to ready the 3,000-person firm to support iPhones. The relative strength of mobile Safari and the e-mail client has led many to treat their systems more like netbooks than mobile devices.

On a pure cost basis, the phones themselves are less expensive to run: their combined plans save about $360 per year, per phone. Stewart adds that individual ownership of devices, instead of handing them out from a corporate pool, has also trimmed costs by persuading workers they should be more careful with their smartphones.

"If an employee owns his own device, the phone tends to hit the pavement a lot less," he says.

Kraft, meanwhile, emphasizes that the iPhone was brought in to support a "culture change" at the company and that many of those using iPhones are happier than they were before they switched. It pushes the company at large to use newer technology and has been cutting costs by letting iPhone owners get their own support rather than depend on the company alone for help. "Overall they provide better support than we can," one person from the company's IT management says.

Oracle sees the iPhone's software development base as a way of rendering its business tools mobile and sees the smartphone as offering possibilities that weren't there before. The company plans to develop apps for customer relations management and other key aspects of its business, and at the iPhone 3.0 SDK event demonstrated some of these apps in advance of their release.

Some problems still remain and range from hardware to purely administrative issues. Besides the sometimes short battery life, calendar sync and VPN auto-login aren't fully in place. Management tools to control the phones' security are still relatively scarce, and features that are for now taken for granted in veteran mobile operating systems, like copy-and-paste text, aren't in place as of April. As many businesses won't necessarily keep traditional company-wide accounts, it's often necessary to move users either to individual corporate accounts or even personal accounts that are matched with official compensation.

iPhone 3.0's release in the summer should address some of these problems, particularly CalDAV for calendars, a more automated VPN login process, and significantly tighter security policies that involve disabling built-in cameras in high-security environments as well as creating encrypted backups.

Even with the immediate hurdles, all three of the sample companies have had rapid growth or expect to in the future. Oracle currently counts 4,000 iPhones among its total mobile base; Kraft is adding 400 phones a month and may top 5,000 by December, while Amylin despite its size still anticipates that as many as 650 of its smartphone-equipped workers -- or 75 percent -- will use iPhones by the end of the year.

And notions that BlackBerries are go-to devices should fade, according to Schadler, who argues that smartphone use is no longer dominated solely by e-mail and schedules, with other functions often falling short on those phones that center too heavily on obvious corporate uses.

"We find the BlackBerry better for email and calendaring and the iPhone better for everything else," he notes.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[rhowarth]

It's good to see an analyst who understands some of the less obviously tangible but still very real advantages of giving people a device they actually want to use.

[LTMP]

There are only two things stopping me from using my iPhone for work.

1) I would need a North American data and voice plan as I travel extensively between the US and Canada.

2) My IT department.

[ulfoaf]

I have an iPhone and love it, but I don't use it for work. There are some things that people miss for business use, as often been repeated:

Searching email
cut and paste
store and email attachments from the phone

3.0 will take care of the first two, right? How about the ability to attach files?

No doubt it is far, far better than a Blackberry for internet access. It you are using web based applications at work, it would be a better choice.

[al_bundy]

can you load apps on an iphone without itunes?

not very corporate if you want to load a sales app for your sales force and you have to use the App Store to do it. one the blackberry you can load apps by packaging them into an executable

[Wonderkid]

While the form factor of most Blackberries (in particular the newish Curve model) is excellent for typing, after all the hype and seeing so many of them on the train in the hands of 'suits', I have spent time playing around with most models in my local Vodafone store. I cannot believe why people prefer them over even a regular Nokia or Sony Ericsson - never mind the way more intuitive iPhone? While the industrial design and keyboards are great, the GUI is inconsistent and looks like an early 1980s VDU/Terminal! Even the (awful) Storm is ugly and a pain to use once you have got beyond the sexy styling and icons.

The iPhone is quite simply light years ahead in stability and usability - and to be frank, if the whole planet got to play with one, (and it had a better camera and was thinner), the iPhone could occupy an even larger chunk of ALL markets, from kids to corporate. It's robust hardware and OS means that the iPhone will remain relevant and in your pocket so much longer, the price is less of an issue. It is an investment.

(Do I sound like an Apple fanboy? Actually, I am a Mac user, but the iPhone is what makes me a fan - the OS is so incredible. I actually think Apple should dump OS X desktop and create large 'iPhone' type devices from the rumored 7 to 10" giant iPod Touch to 30" iMac Touches. Imagine PhotoShop or Excel with multitouch? They would be so much easier and faster to operate.)

Phew! Bed time. (Oh, guess what, I don't even have an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch V2. Lovely!)

[melgross]

I'm not surprised. I hear similar things for those I know.

About attachments, I would imagine we would be able to with C/paste. That's the point to it.

[hezekiahb]

Originally Posted by ulfoaf

I have an iPhone and love it, but I don't use it for work. There are some things that people miss for business use, as often been repeated:

Searching email
cut and paste
store and email attachments from the phone

3.0 will take care of the first two, right? How about the ability to attach files?

No doubt it is far, far better than a Blackberry for internet access. It you are using web based applications at work, it would be a better choice.

I'm not sure I get why people like the BlackBerry better for e-mail. I have one & hate it, I think the interface is absolutely horrible.

I am in the IT department where I work & have gotten to work with iPhones quite a bit while setting them up with wifi & exchange. I can't wait for Snow Leopard as I hate Entourage. It'd be nice if I could switch from my BlackBerry to an iPhone.

For me it isn't cool factor or the web capabilities. I just get sick of these apps that are so cluttered & difficult to use.

[pk22901]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

can you load apps on an iphone without itunes?

not very corporate if you want to load a sales app for your sales force and you have to use the App Store to do it. one the blackberry you can load apps by packaging them into an executable

Check Page 11 of this pdf:

http://images.apple.com/iphone/enter...Enterprise.pdf

A little info can make a big difference, I guess.

[sflocal]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

can you load apps on an iphone without itunes?

not very corporate if you want to load a sales app for your sales force and you have to use the App Store to do it. one the blackberry you can load apps by packaging them into an executable

An enterprise developer allows download without the need for iTunes.

[dagamer34]

Originally Posted by ulfoaf

I have an iPhone and love it, but I don't use it for work. There are some things that people miss for business use, as often been repeated:

Searching email
cut and paste
store and email attachments from the phone

3.0 will take care of the first two, right? How about the ability to attach files?

No doubt it is far, far better than a Blackberry for internet access. It you are using web based applications at work, it would be a better choice.

The last one would probably require some type of file-system application, and that's not likely to be in 3.0. Maybe next year?

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

can you load apps on an iphone without itunes?

not very corporate if you want to load a sales app for your sales force and you have to use the App Store to do it. one the blackberry you can load apps by packaging them into an executable

Yes you can--and Apple's tools officially support doing so. Companies can create apps for internal use only, and bypass the iTunes Store. (This has been true since the beginning--it's an option you're presented with when you sign up as an iPhone developer.)

Very corporate

Originally Posted by hezekiahb

I'm not sure I get why people like the BlackBerry better for e-mail. I have one & hate it, I think the interface is absolutely horrible.

...

I tend to agree, but aside from "old habits die hard," email search is one huge reason I'm sure. (And a reason Apple has addressed with 3.0.)

Originally Posted by dagamer34

The last one would probably require some type of file-system application, and that's not likely to be in 3.0. Maybe next year?

I'd by happy just to see 3rd-party support for attachments from apps. Air Sharing gives me a useful file system--now let me email any one of those files And doing so from Office (which Microsoft hints is coming to iPhone) would be nice too. Meanwhile, my workaround is to have the attachments I commonly need to email sitting in my own inbox, where I can forward them at will.

[TenoBell]

You can currently attach and email pictures, HTML, and URL's. The iPhone doesn't have local storage but with copy/paste you can potentially save and attach most anything to an email.

3.0 adds the ability for any app to have direct access to email. So potentially you can attach and email anything from any app that has direct access to email.

Originally Posted by ulfoaf

Searching email
cut and paste
store and email attachments from the phone

3.0 will take care of the first two, right? How about the ability to attach files?

[iphoniac]

Originally Posted by ulfoaf

Searching email
cut and paste
store and email attachments from the phone

3.0 will take care of the first two, right? How about the ability to attach files?

The iPhone software will make the first two available, but there are a few simple solutions to the last one. One of them is QuickOffice, which I use often. You just have to be willing to incorporate it into your work style. It allows you to upload files to your iPhone through wifi, or you can view your MobileMe iDisk (if you have an account, but it works either way). One of the many great things about having MobileMe...

[astrosmash]

"We find the BlackBerry better for email and calendaring and the iPhone better for everything else,"

I would agree with that, although I'd include memos, tasks, contacts, and anything else that requires a keyboard in that list. And for me, the 'everything else' is games and music.

It all depends on where your priorities lie. My priorities are messaging and music, so I carry both a Blackberry Curve and an iPod Touch.

[rkevwill]

Originally Posted by hezekiahb

I'm not sure I get why people like the BlackBerry better for e-mail. I have one & hate it, I think the interface is absolutely horrible.

I am in the IT department where I work & have gotten to work with iPhones quite a bit while setting them up with wifi & exchange. I can't wait for Snow Leopard as I hate Entourage. It'd be nice if I could switch from my BlackBerry to an iPhone.

For me it isn't cool factor or the web capabilities. I just get sick of these apps that are so cluttered & difficult to use.

Um......I find the above quote a bit hard to believe, or.....the person spends more time on the net and playing with apps, then doing emails. I (unfortunately) reply, send, etc, probably 25-30 emails on the phone a day. Many of these emails are fairly long. There is NO way I would want to use an iphone for these longer emails. (not to mention all the variety of attachments etc). I agree with the article. The blackberry is better for emails, the iphone everything else. Oh, I don't use a blackberry btw, I still use a treo 755p, but I sure plan on getting a 9630 eventually. And keeping my iPod Touch in my briefcase for playing, and surfing at hot spots. When the iphone gets a physical qwerty keyboard, and allows serious GPS apps with voice routing (like garmin) I would throw away everything else, and get one

[LanPhantom]

Go Apple Go. I'm in the "Corporate" environment and I can't wait to see an even balance of PC's vs. MAC's vs. iPhones and "other smart phones". Cost of ownership is so fricken high anyways cause all the pc's are taking craps all the time it would be nice to get something that is built well and last a long time.

LanPhantom

[aaarrrgggh]

It pains me to say it, but Forrester gets it!

This is really huge for the iPhone and Apple in general. Next thing you know, Forrester is going to recommend businesses consider heterogeneous desktop environments to maintain long-term computing flexibility!

I can easily picture this one little research paper adding 2-3MM iPhone/iPod Touch units per year!

[monstrosity]

is there a limit on the number of devices you can install on for enterprise? (non app store?)

[aaarrrgggh]

Originally Posted by hezekiahb

I'm not sure I get why people like the BlackBerry better for e-mail. I have one & hate it, I think the interface is absolutely horrible.

I was actually starting to think the same thing last week as I was searching for something on my co-worker's blackberry. I used to love the BB, as it was simple and easy to use with one hand. When they dropped the click wheel, you lost much of that function. The home screen is a complete mess...

...but, when it comes to typing anything more than one or two lines, the Blackberry still wins.

The flip side of that argument is that you need to be very careful writing more than two lines when you are on the road and only putting half your attention into composition of a response. I just wish the iPhone made it easier to flag things for follow-up later.

[TenoBell]

That's a matter of opinion and what you are used to. I admit at this point my brain is wired for the iPhone. I recently tried typing on a friends BB, since their are two or three functions on every key, and the keys are a bit small for my fingers, I had a difficult time.

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

...but, when it comes to typing anything more than one or two lines, the Blackberry still wins.
.

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

On a pure cost basis, the phones themselves are less expensive to run: their combined plans save about $360 per year, per phone. Stewart adds that individual ownership of devices, instead of handing them out from a corporate pool, has also trimmed costs by persuading workers they should be more careful with their smartphones.

"If an employee owns his own device, the phone tends to hit the pavement a lot less," he says.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

Part A] How many people were on this business plan using iPhones? 5, 10, 50, 100? The fewer the people, the more impressed I will be with the 360 dollar savings. Though, savings at all is good anyways!

Part B] So, the company isn't buying the iPhones like they did the blackberries. Their employees are buying the phones then using them on the business's plan. Of course that means there will be a savings when the cost of hardware is taken out!

So instead of Crackberries, we'll have iCrack! Hee hee. As long as the device does what the business needs it to do, I don't care which device they use. All devices have their ups and downs.

It'll be interesting to see exactly this plays out if Apple really does go for more cooperate...

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by melgross

About attachments, I would imagine we would be able to with C/paste. That's the point to it.

I'd hope for something better before long.

Originally Posted by dagamer34

would probably require some type of file-system application, and that's not likely to be in 3.0. Maybe next year?

Hopefully Apple is looking into these kinds of things - but most likely this could be done in combination with MobileMe. iDisk can send "attachment links" via email, linking to the iDisk original - something like that on the iPhone could be very effective. It would also allow you to send small or huge attachments without using your data allowance. And Apple gets to push MobileMe some more.

Beyond that, as others have said, no reason in the v3 software that "Air Share" couldn't let you place a file into an email to send, is there?

[Drealoth]

Typing kills the iPhone. Add a keyboard to the iPhone and RIM will have their work cut out for them to stay competitive. Security is another issue in corporate situations, which RIM has done quite well.

RIM may be falling behind, but don't discount them yet.

[a_greer]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"We find the BlackBerry better for email and calendaring and the iPhone better for everything else," he notes.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

Think of this like a corporate IT manager: what is the business case for mobile data devices? there are four primary business case concerns in this space

1: Phone - I give this one to Blackberry, voice dialing is a God Send

2: Email: By the articals own statement, the BB wins email, you cant even search messages on the iphone

3: Data tethering for road warriors: BB Wins by Forfeit on this one.

4: Right carrier for the right region; ATT has great coverage in some areas, in other parts of the country, VZW or Sprint and sometimes even tmobile is a better choice...you cant choose carriers on iphone, a big no no for corps.

So I fail to see why a business would select iphone right now, of course 3.0 changes the game, but the article speaks in terms of today.iPhone is a great gadget, but if it is second place to BB on all four counts, so what is the business case for iPhone?

while not terribly important, there is other key, the iphone comes with a camera and no choice, some companies, (think medical and finance) may not want employees having company issued cameras, this is particularly true for third party auditors who go into company and look at the books, when companys bring in outside firms, they don't want to risk unauthorized pics being taken in an R and D area.

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by a_greer

So I fail to see why a business would select iphone right now, of course 3.0 changes the game, but the article speaks in terms of today.iPhone is a great gadget, but if it is second place to BB on all four counts, so what is the business case for iPhone?

You miss the point of the article, that the uses of the iPhone go beyond the traditional idea of a phone which also gives you great email. The iPhone gets used for new things that the BB can't match, and people are treating the iPhone more like their computer rather than an adjunct.

That means you have to add another business need to your list, and also it reduces the importance of the tethering.

[anantksundaram]

You can still buy AAPL at $120..... going, going......

[TenoBell]

Originally Posted by Drealoth

Typing kills the iPhone. Add a keyboard to the iPhone and RIM will have their work cut out for them to stay competitive. Security is another issue in corporate situations, which RIM has done quite well.

Typing is difficult on the iPhone only if you cannot let go of the Black Berry. You cannot type on virtual keyboard as though you are typing on a hard keyboard and expect to have the same result.

RIM may be falling behind, but don't discount them yet.

RIM isn't falling behind this past quarter they have done very well.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by rkevwill

There is NO way I would want to use an iphone for these longer emails.

What is the problem with the iPhone and the length of emails!?

Originally Posted by rkevwill

When the iphone gets a physical qwerty keyboard....

Enjoy your 755p (and the like) for life! That'll be a long time coming.....

[djdj]

I might consider an iPhone if they ever get Exchange syncing right. It still won't automatically sync any email folders besides the Inbox, which for me is where my junk mail goes; all my real mail gets sorted into the appropriate folders. But the iPhone won't sync those automatically, making it next to worthless for me.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by rkevwill

Um......I find the above quote a bit hard to believe, or.....the person spends more time on the net and playing with apps, then doing emails. I (unfortunately) reply, send, etc, probably 25-30 emails on the phone a day. Many of these emails are fairly long. There is NO way I would want to use an iphone for these longer emails. (not to mention all the variety of attachments etc). I agree with the article. The blackberry is better for emails, the iphone everything else. Oh, I don't use a blackberry btw, I still use a treo 755p, but I sure plan on getting a 9630 eventually. And keeping my iPod Touch in my briefcase for playing, and surfing at hot spots. When the iphone gets a physical qwerty keyboard, and allows serious GPS apps with voice routing (like garmin) I would throw away everything else, and get one

I have little doubt someone will come up with a flip keyboard/hardware attachment for iPhone that will finally push the Blackberry into the dustbin of history.

[a_greer]

Originally Posted by GregAlexander

You miss the point of the article, that the uses of the iPhone go beyond the traditional idea of a phone which also gives you great email. The iPhone gets used for new things that the BB can't match, and people are treating the iPhone more like their computer rather than an adjunct.

That means you have to add another business need to your list, and also it reduces the importance of the tethering.

hmmm...I think you inadvertently hurt your case...can you edit ppt, excel, and such on an iphone? you can on a BB, but its a pain..., as it would be on the iphone because the screen is tiny. BB can be connected to a projector directly to deliver PPTs, using a 3rd party app and special USB-"DVI interface, can the iphone do that? BB can also browse published file shares...for example, my former manager and I were doing a little test, we wanted to open the latest inventory report and find the location of an asset...took him 30 seconds, took me a lot longer, and I was only able to do it because I had forwarded it from my desk earlier, so it was an attachment: BB is still the business king...I am a huge iphone guy, but it is obvious that this article is written by analysts, guys who read spreadsheets and make phone calls, guys that have never answered a support call at 12:00 midnighht, guys who have never implemented deployed and supported a system that manages wireless devices in a company.

The iphone has great potential, and I would love to see it get there, but truth is, it just isnt as good as the BB for business.

[X38]

I work at a very large (many thousands of users) government office where Blackberries have been prevalent for years and are readily available as government funded (& owned) equipment to most who want one. The IT department has been generally Apple hostile for many years and iPhones are definitely not supported.

I bought my iPhone as a personal phone the day they first came out. (I neither have nor want a 'company' Blackberry.) I quickly started using it at work to access email via our webmail system. It was usable in a pinch, but not very convenient since I could not access our facility wifi on the iPhone (IT won't give guest user accounts for personal phones) and webmail of Edge is a bit clunky. Mostly I used it when on the road.

However, when the 2.0 upgrade came out, with the addition of LEAP I was able to access the facility wifi through my regular user account name & password and to set up an email account on my iPhone that accesses my work Exchange account. It took only a matter of minutes and no help from IT nor any special access. My iPhone now automatically switches from my home wifi to Edge to work wifi, etc. as I move around during the day and all the while keeps my personal and work email accounts updated and in separate folders. The transition between work and personal is now so seamless that I barely even notice, but the emails are all kept separate. If I need to do any heavy web stuff on the phone, the wifi is there at work as well. I can even set the work email for push notifications and I actually get the Exchange mail so fast on my iPhone that I usually finish reading the message before it even shows up on my hard wired desktop machine at work. (I usually leave push off because the heavy email traffic can munch the battery pretty quick and the 15 minute updates are more than good enough.) Going on travel is now like never loosing access.

All without any effort or even awareness on the part of the IT department. There are a number of us 'bootleg' iPhone users there now, even some on ipod touches. It is my phone and my account so there is no conflict with using it for whatever personal stuff I want to as well. It works as well or better than the crackberries for work stuff, let alone being an ipod. As long as IT leaves us alone, I'll be perfectly happy with the situation. The only nice thing would be if I could talk them into subsidizing a data tethering upgrade to my AT&T account when iPhone 3.0 adds that. (Cell modems are still a very privileged perq.)
No way would I ever want to get a 'company' Blackberry phone now. I have one (very slim) device that does all I need for work and personal and I control it. (And NO WAY would I want a clunker of a phone bloated out with one of those stupid chicklet keyboards. The iPhone virtual keyboard is a stroke of genius - hopefully physical keyboard phones will go the way of the command line interface very soon.)

The convenience is unbelievable and the simplicity of getting it set up still seems surreal for the lack of effort required. All at no cost and no effort required from my employer. Like I said, I don't think the IT department even knows us users are doing this. They certainly didn't do anything for us to enable it that I am aware of and they aren't getting charged for us like they are for all the officially sanctioned crackberry users.

As others have mentioned, the only thing beyond the 3.0 updates (hardware & software) that I'd really like to see is a built-in file handling app (sort of a mini Finder). I'll probably try one of the third party ones as soon as 3.0 is out though.

[macologist]

Both iPhone and BB have cameras, and videos eventually, so one or the other being more or less of a threat as far as unauthorized image capture is non issue, or at least won't be an issue soon...

External keyboard for iPhone, could kill BB...

The closer iPhone resembles desktop-laptop features, the sooner it'll take a lead in corporate world, and among the civilians!

I hope it'll be easy for me to transfer my Memos from Palm Treo 700p to iPhone!

I'd like to see this on iPhone: attaching Memos and Appointments to Contact, and Contact to Contact - ala Auto Tagging. I've used that on my Palm Desktop on Mac for years, and Entourage 2004 has that. So, if iPhone too has that, it would be great!

Video recording, and Chatting would push iPhone through the roof!

Lucky are those who bought AAPL recently at $80... Wish I could have done that!

If Steve Jobs comes back, that's an extra bonus!!!

Palm Pre could be a surprise...and a distraction, but hey, if they keep Apple on its toes, cool... And I wouldn't bet on Pre...

In 2-3 years with 4G - that's when it's gonna be SERIOUS FUN!!!!

[TenoBell]

The functions you've listed are simply software functions. There is nothing that prevents the iPhone from performing any of those functions outside of the fact that the software has not been written. The iPhone (or any phone) would make a far better remote control for Power Point than the primary presentation device.

I do agree with you though that the BB was designed primarily to meet the needs of business with some consumer function built in, the iPhone was designed primarily to meet the needs of consumers with some business function built in.

Originally Posted by a_greer

hmmm...I think you inadvertently hurt your case...can you edit ppt, excel, and such on an iphone? you can on a BB, but its a pain..., as it would be on the iphone because the screen is tiny. BB can be connected to a projector directly to deliver PPTs, using a 3rd party app and special USB-"DVI interface, can the iphone do that? BB can also browse published file shares...for example, my former manager and I were doing a little test, we wanted to open the latest inventory report and find the location of an asset...took him 30 seconds, took me a lot longer, and I was only able to do it because I had forwarded it from my desk earlier, so it was an attachment: BB is still the business king...I am a huge iphone guy, but it is obvious that this article is written by analysts, guys who read spreadsheets and make phone calls, guys that have never answered a support call at 12:00 midnighht, guys who have never implemented deployed and supported a system that manages wireless devices in a company.

The iphone has great potential, and I would love to see it get there, but truth is, it just isnt as good as the BB for business.

[bsenka]

The number of people who like touchscreen typing are far outstripped by the number of people who do not, and it's a divide that's not likely to ever be reconciled. Apple needs both to really penetrate the enterprise market.

[djames42]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Typing is difficult on the iPhone only if you cannot let go of the Black Berry. You cannot type on virtual keyboard as though you are typing on a hard keyboard and expect to have the same result.

Agreed

I carry both a Curve and an iPhone. I used to think I typed quickly on the BB's physical keyboard, but after a few weeks I'd already become faster on the virtual keyboard. I find the predictive correction allows me to tap away as fast as I can and have messes like rmvrtpr automatically morph into encrypt

[kaiwai]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

can you load apps on an iphone without itunes?

not very corporate if you want to load a sales app for your sales force and you have to use the App Store to do it. one the blackberry you can load apps by packaging them into an executable

Stop spouting crap and read up on what Apple provides to enterprise customers.

Maybe al, you take your hands out of your pants and let your fingers do some googling.

[nagromme]

Re needing the physical keyboard to type on: I'd have thought it was better too, and ANY habit is very hard to change. But I recently found myself "touch typing" on my iPhone without looking at the keys! Surprising. As soon as I thought about it I couldn't do it anymore

A physical keyboard IS very nice in some ways, but no small keyboard is ever ideal. Even a Blackberry keyboard is a compromise for portability. The iPhone is a compromise too--and the iPhone's keyboard does have certain advantages* over the Blackberry. Both device's keyboards have advantages--they're just different ones. And if you've spent hours a day for months on one of them, the other is bound to bother you! Too bad we can't have the best of both types of keyboard.

* Some iPhone keyboard benefits: bigger screen in a smaller device, landscape and portrait modes, keys that will never get sticky or jam, key labels that adapt as needed (different languages, URL keyboard, giant numpad, easy accents, etc.), ability to hit more than one key at once and it doesn't matter: the hit area for an iPhone key is larger than what you see: letters that actually spell words get bigger. Plus you're SUPPOSED to hit more than one key at once on the iPhone: it's the key closest to the middle of the press that counts. On a Blackberry if you hit two keys at once you hit two keys at once--it can't geometrically tell which you were "closest" to. So speed typing on an iPhone can be amazingly accurate once you have the necessary habits.

Originally Posted by monstrosity

is there a limit on the number of devices you can install on for enterprise? (non app store?)

Not as far as I know--and if there is, it must be in the thousands.

(This is not the same as "ad hoc" distribution for beta testing--that also bypasses the App Store but is limited to 100 users. And you don't need to be an Enterprise Developer for that.)

Originally Posted by bsenka

The number of people who like touchscreen typing are far outstripped by the number of people who do not, and it's a divide that's not likely to ever be reconciled. Apple needs both to really penetrate the enterprise market.

The number of people who say they do not like touchscreen typing is far larger than the number who have truly TRIED it at length on an Apple product And the number of people who LIKE a Blackberry's tiny keys is smaller than the number who find it, at best, effective given the need for compactness.

But the number who have tried an iPhone or iPod Touch is a fast-growing number...

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by a_greer

hmmm...I think you inadvertently hurt your case...can you edit ppt, excel, and such on an iphone? you can on a BB, but its a pain..., as it would be on the iphone because the screen is tiny. BB can be connected to a projector directly to deliver PPTs, using a 3rd party app and special USB-"DVI interface, can the iphone do that? BB can also browse published file shares...for example, my former manager and I were doing a little test, we wanted to open the latest inventory report and find the location of an asset...took him 30 seconds, took me a lot longer, and I was only able to do it because I had forwarded it from my desk earlier, so it was an attachment: BB is still the business king...I am a huge iphone guy, but it is obvious that this article is written by analysts, guys who read spreadsheets and make phone calls, guys that have never answered a support call at 12:00 midnighht, guys who have never implemented deployed and supported a system that manages wireless devices in a company.

The iphone has great potential, and I would love to see it get there, but truth is, it just isnt as good as the BB for business.

My case, as such , was that we can't judge the functionality of the phones based mainly on email & tethering - which until now have been the key uses.

So then it comes down to what functions you either need, or would use extensively (but don't realise you need yet). For now, different phones do different things. I think it's great that your BB can do overheads, though I personally wouldn't edit spreadsheets or word documents on a phone, it's just not what I have it for (no matter which keyboard it has!). I often check the tide & weather, podcasts, movie information & trailers, play a few games, read news or websites, and so on (in addition to mail, faxes, calendar, music, etc).

It's not good picking single tasks and comparing against phones. The iPhone will win many of those comparisons due to the sheer number of apps available - but then we're judging so many things which are irrelevant to our working life.

ps. Remember that making something simple to use ends up defining how useful the phone is, too.