“On Mar. 6, at its Cupertino (Calif.) campus, Apple is expected to announce a strategy to use its Web-browsing iPhone to move into the corporate market. Apple will likely unveil plans to spur development of more software for the phone, to improve security on the device, and to make it compatible with popular e-mail systems such as Microsoft’s ubiquitous Outlook. Such steps may make corporations more willing to approve the iPhone for use by their employees. The moves will put Apple into direct competition with Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices now dominate the wireless e-mail market,” Peter Burrows writes for BusinessWeek.
“The iPhone may well represent Apple’s best chance in years of tapping the corporate market. Not only will employees be more likely to afford the phone’s steep $400 price tag with their company’s help, but many are already hankering for fashionable, useful alternatives to the BlackBerry and other existing devices,” Burrows writes.
“William Markey, president of telecom consultancy RelevantC, is skeptical of Apple’s prospects. ‘What’s the business case for the iPhone? Being able to listen to music on your [work] cell phone?’ he says,” Burrows writes.
MacDailyNews Note: RelevantC (RCBG) was founded by several Motorola alumni. In other words, refugees from a beleaguered mess of a company that is utterly failing in the mobile device market and is currently exploring the possibility of breaking up the company and/or selling off their mobile phone business. It’s no surprise that William Markey doesn’t get it at all.
Burrows continues, “the major appeal of the iPhone for corporate buyers may be that it’s basically a tiny Mac computer. It has the ability to run a huge variety of software. With its touch-screen-only interface and simple menus, it’s basically an open slate for whatever applications a company wants to run. One possibility would to bring Apple’s iChat videoconferencing software to the iPhone; another would be to create simple programs so salespeople can get the latest info on every customer they’re scheduled to see that day. ‘The iPhone is like the Mac for mobile,’ says design guru Jakob Nielsen.”
MacDailyNews Note: As IKON points out below, you’d need a clip-on mirror to do videoconferencing on the current iPhone as the camera and screen are on opposite sides of the device.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Stoo" for the heads up.]
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