“Apple’s soon-to-be-launched iPhone will be irrelevant to business users because it is a ‘closed device’ and does not support Microsoft Office, a senior executive with the software giant said this week,” David Braue reports for ZDNet Australia.
“‘It’s a great music phone, and I’m sure it will be fantastic and have an interesting user interface,’ Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific head of smartphone strategy Chris Sorenson told press during a recent visit to Australia,” Braue reports.
“‘However, it’s a closed device that you cannot install applications on, and there’s no support for Office documents. If you’re an enterprise and want to roll out line of business applications, it’s just not an option. Even using it as a heavy messaging device will be a challenge,’ the executive added,” Braue reports.
Full article here.
This Microsoft executive is simply using the main talking point of the FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone, namely: “iPhone is not for business.” It’s a weak point, as Microsoft should know, since Research In Motion has already long ago proven it wrong with the Blackberry, but it seems to be all they’ve got. These things happen when you’re instantly outclassed and shown to be 5-10 years behind the times, as Apple did to the mobile device industry with their iPhone unveiling. The fact is that business people will decide which device they want to carry and their businesses will adapt to it. Many will choose Apple’s iPhone.
This tack isn’t new. Goofy quote whore Rob Enderle tried out this same talking point back in early February (here). So did some no name from an internal network security provider (here), perhaps trying to protect his business by pushing Microsoft products while discouraging the use of Apple products — you know, like the IT guys who “choose” Windows’ and its inherent insecurity for their own job security. Microsoft even trotted out their trained dancing monkey to fake cackle and recite back the same talking point (here). There have been many others; we’ll spare you.
The fear they spread is their own. And they’re right to be afraid. (Hey, at least they got one thing right!)
That Microsoft is still so reliant on Office to fuel their multitudinous and wide-ranging failures is a sad indictment of their so-called management. That they use Office to try to leverage others out of markets or keep them out of markets is something the antitrust authorities should closely examine. We don’t use Microsoft Office for this reason, among others, and also because we’ve found that – gasp! – we can survive just fine without using a single one of Microsoft’s bloated, unimaginative products, thank you very much.
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