Dec 2008
iPhone in the Enterprise

The iPhone’s introduction in June 2007 woke the US mobile phone user to the potential of the smartphone. There is no doubt that Apple delivered a device that redefined touch input, the mobile Internet and users’ expectations from a smartphone. ‘Prosumers’ – demanding users who push the boundary between the functionality of consumer and enterprise devices – have since dragged it into the enterprise, and incumbent device vendors are now responding with worthy competing devices. But the iPhone will require more than hardware and software updates to win over the enterprise. If Apple chooses to engage in the enterprise, it will need to reshape itself into a service provider with responsive, tiered support for its partners. While services like iTunes point to the company’s potential, the success of the iPhone and Apple’s portfolio of innovative hardware may be too great for the company to justify the efforts needed to transform itself. This presents an opportunity for a trusted partner/developer to work with Apple to build a managed secure offering for the enterprise on top of the iPhone.

The iPhone created an opportunity for Apple to compete with RIM in the enterprise, but it also highlights an opening for competitors like Nokia or Microsoft with device-vendor partners like HTC, Motorola and Samsung. The iPhone has so effectively whetted the appetite of corporate mobility users wanting more feature-rich products that executives are smuggling the device into the enterprise without authorization. No single vendor – as cool as Apple may be – can possibly develop sufficient applications to sate this appetite, so third-party software developers have an immense opportunity to add value. The question is, will Apple decide this is the road it wants to travel? Will it cede the control it so famously exerts over every stage of its products’ development? Or will it choose – for the sake of increased financial opportunity – to compete in the enterprise?

If it does, can Apple move fast enough to meet developer and enterprise demands, or will it lose out on its historic chance to get a corporate foothold and forever be relegated to SMBs, like Palm? Will the enterprise mobile market continue to be dominated by closed architectures like those of Microsoft, RIM and, indeed, Apple? Or will competing vendors – like Google’s Android or Nokia’s coming Symbian Foundation – with more open development regimes and open SdKs successfully entice the developer of the next killer enterprise app?

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