“Ford Motor Co. is deploying iPhones for corporate use to employees worldwide, scoring a win for Apple Inc. as it seeks to lure more corporate customers,” Craig Trudell and Keith Naughton report for Bloomberg. “The second largest U.S. automaker will replace BlackBerry Ltd.’s smartphones with iPhones for about 3,300 workers by the end of this year, Sara Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, said today in an interview. About 6,000 more employees will receive iPhones over the next two years, replacing flip phones, she said. Ford is hiring a mobile technology analyst whose main focus will be to oversee the “global deployment of corporate iPhones,” the company said in an online job posting.”
“‘We are going to get everyone on iPhones,’ Tatchio said. ‘It meets the overall needs of the employees because it is able to serve both our business needs in a secure way and the needs we have in our personal lives with a single device,'” Trudell and Naughton report. “Having all employees on the same smartphone will improve security and simplify information technology management, Tatchio said. Ford is making ‘no extra investment’ to convert to iPhones, other than the cost of replacing the devices, she said.”
Trudell and Naughton report, “The switch to iPhones by Ford, which has about 181,000 employees worldwide, is a blow to BlackBerry and Chief Executive Officer John Chen, who has sought to turn around the company by prioritizing software-based services for corporations as its smartphone sales slump.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Who’s scoffing now, DingleBerry?
How many more shots to the head can the BlechBury zombie take?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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Dell, BlackBerry scoff at threat from Apple-IBM alliance – July 28, 2014
Apple pounds final nail in beleaguered BlackBerry’s coffin – July 23, 2014
Apple+IBM take on the enterprise: Beleaguered Blackberry another big loser – July 16, 2014
Beleaguered BlackBerry CEO Chen belittles iPhone users as ‘wall huggers’ who carry battery-short phones – March 7, 2014
Beleaguered BlackBerry posts massive $4.4 billion quarterly loss, inks deal with Foxconn to build phones nobody wants – December 20, 2013
Pfizer dumps beleaguered BlackBerry phones for Apple iPhone, Android phones due to company’s ‘volatile state’ – November 15, 2013
Maybe now they’ll provide better connectivity between my iphone and my fusion.
How about CarPlay in the new Ford cars? How long will customers be stuck with Microsoft in the dash?
That’s why they decided to move to iPhones… CarPlay. Even Ford’s employees wouldn’t let SYNC give them the time of day.
The writing is on the wall for Microsoft’s Sync to become Sunk and replaced with CarPlay at Ford as with almost everywhere else.
Good to see Apple joining forces with the last truly American auto company, the only one that didn’t take the Obama bailout squandering billions in tax dollars.
Perhaps you would have liked to see millions of people left jobless. And not just the factory workers. Think supply chain, dealerships, aftermarket.
And, we made a profit from the paybacks from the “bailouts”.
Be real, not some pimple faced idiot with a hand flu of talking points.
BTW- Ford is a multinational, with dealings and holdings in every industrialized country on the planet.
Ford supported the autu industry bailout. They just didn’t need it for themselves. They compete with the other automakers but also rely on the same suppliers. My dad and several uncles worked for GM, Ford and Chrysler. It kept us alive. I am grateful President Obama had faith in America and kept the auto industry alive.
The American auto industry would still be alive today – and far stronger – had the companies been allowed to enter bankruptcy like every other American business does when necessary. What Obama did was tit-for-tat payoff for the unions supporting him. He left you with weaker companies than you would have had, had he not paid off his union supporters via his wrongheaded actions. The last person you should be grateful to is Oblahblah. You’ll be straight back in deep shit sooner than later because of him.
I don’t know Why you hate him. I think he’s a regular stand up family guy.
Who would you vote for; a war hero that you couldn’t feel that much for, or the guy who you feel like is similar to you in social dilemnas?
The war hero, of course, because he’s likely faced similar difficult choices to what the presidency brings. The perception that someone similar to you in social dilemmas is a better choice is not logical, and a very bad reason to vote for a candidate. I don’t care if the president is relatable to me, I care that the president can carry out their job.
“… can carry out their job.’ He fumbled at the starting line! Could not even select a good vice-president.
Ah yes the war hero who graduated near the bottom of his class, wrecked his plane, and was protected by his father the admiral. There’s an American success story for you. He is a senile fool who nearly put Northwoods Barbie in line to be president.
GM would have been liquidated as would have Chrysler. For my money, the American road would be a better place without the Obamamobiles (Government Motors) polluting our landscape. Obama should have let them die. On that point I agree with what Mitt Romney said in the Op-Ed he famously wrote during the crisis.
As for the claim that the bailout was a White House Quid Pro Quo for the UAW, nothing could be farther from the truth. The UAW had signed contracts with GM and Chrysler that both companies INTENTIONALLY underfunded even as they reported record profits, paid dividends to shareholders and paid huge bonuses to management level employees. Otherwise, GM and Chrysler had no intention of ever fully funding the pensions that were part of the contracted pay package earned by hourly workers represented by the UAW, URW, and other unions that work in the auto plants. The same is true of the repeatedly bailed out Airlines that have also dumped unfunded Pension liabilities upon the American Taxpayer.
Mr/Ms First 2014, Then 2016, the hourly workers and their unions EARNED benefits that were contractually agreed to under long established US law. When the Unions settled to allow the structured bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler they took a haircut (a percentage loss) on monies owed them under contracts that they had fulfilled and were therefore entitled to.
For all the Right Wing ranting about Unions, all they represent is coverage of employees under a contract instead of working “at will”. When a company or person signs a Union Contract they enter a contractual obligation to deliver what has been negotiated according to the specifics of the contract and the applicable laws in effect. The workers did the US Taxpayer a favor by agreeing to the deal and also took a significant pay cut for future workers under the contract.
If (Old) GM and Chrysler were too stupid to negotiate profitable contracts then the managers and executives were unworthy of their positions and failed the shareholders. If they had no intention of ever honoring them they are guilty of a crime.
The US worker is among the most productive in the world and can build high quality products with or without Union representation. The quality problems at the US car companies were more a product of poor management than of a bad workforce.
The companies *did* enter bankruptcy. I don’t know why this lie continues to get perpetuated. GM and Chrysler both went into bankruptcy. The government provided funds to prevent to allow that to take place in an orderly fashion, as no bank was going to provide them with the capital. And let’s also be clear about one other thing: The auto bailouts started under President Bush. He provided the initial loans in late 2008, then rightfully decided the rest of the problem should be left to his successor as he was just weeks away from leaving office.
You seem to believe both companies should have been forced into liquidation. Had that occurred we’d have Chinese car companies owning formerly American assets–if not here, then in other parts of the world where GM and Chrysler companies operate. And the US would be out tens of thousands of jobs. Very patriotic of you…
Politics aside, the whole problem was self-inflicted by the automobile industry, by not aggressively innovating and pursuing hybrid and fully electric solutions.
Undeserving for GM. They are trash and always will be. Liars and cheats.
>And, we made a profit from the paybacks from the “bailouts”.
[citation needed]
At one point, GM used phony math to say we made a profit..
What do you mean truly American? They’ve outsourced more than anyone. True on the bailout though. I wouldn’t consider them American though
Now if Ford would just dump MS Stync service and replace it with iCar support.
this week RIM and Dell laughed at the Apple IBM alliance as “Two elephants start dancing” and I posted: the two elephants are squashing two clueless near extinct dodos (Dell Rim) in between them.
Squish… Squish….. Squish…
(is it getting TIGHT in there dudes… ?)
🙂
Next, Ford needs to get rid of the “Ford Sync” technology by Microsoft (“Windows Embedded Automotive”), that they shove on their customers…
Ford is dumping MS Sync…. for Blackberry. I wonder if this latest change will change their mind.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/02/24/ford-microsoft-blackberry/5784519/
The blackberry architecture is a support framework. It is NOT Blackberry OS. It is used in many different mobility products. It may be the best product that Blackberry offers.
Ford is adopting QNX, upon which Apple’s CarPlay rides just fine.
Yeah, wasn’t Blackberry one of the scoffers in an earlier article?
It seems they have learned nothing from their iPhone experience, back in 2007.
Sounds so weird to hear things like ‘getting everyone on the same smartphone to simply and improve security’. It’s like hearing IT guys back in the day talking about pcs. How things have changed and many of us never truly dreamed of such a day.
“replacing flip phones,”
Really?
Fscking flip phones?
It sounds like Ford is being run by a socialist dictator. The royal family gets to have the Crown Jewels (iPhone), while the working-class peasants get slim pickings (Windows powered cars). Is Ford the North Korea of companies?
:rolls:
All well and good but I won’t be happy until the POTUS ditches his BlackBerry. It seems a bit unsettling that the POTUS has to use a Canadian product to get American ultra-secured email. I’m somewhat surprised the U.S. government feels comfortable with doing such a thing. Unless it’s something where the presidents of all nations have agreed to use BlackBerrys as some unified secure system.
Obama also has an iPad.
The Blackberry he uses was specially made to NSA specifications and is used in a very limited manner. Most of his communications are on phones that are locked down tighter than a chastity belt.
MDN with their usual high school post! Ford moves to iPhone and German government moves to BlackBerry. Beleaguered Apple relegated to an American client… again.
The German government is run by a woman, remember. No logic there. German government will hate using the phones in some kind of effort to prevent spying on them. As if blackberry were more secure from spying in some way.
Headline…. Chinese car makers target iPhone carrying Ford employees as part of their grand plan to bring America to its knees. The fine folks of the Republic of China were obviously relieved to hear that Ford decided to replace the most secure mobile OS with the Apple Inc. iOS.
Shows how backward Ford is that it took them this long!
Don’t forget Apple’s halo effect. All in due time. First iPhones next Car Play.
Now all they have to do is adapt their SYNC car system to apple devices.
Smart choice, Ford. Now fix your awful interiors!
Ford needs total integration with Apple IOS …get off Microsoft