AT&T to Target iPhone to Enterprise

narramissic writes "AT&T is reportedly preparing to market the iPhone to business users and is scurrying to ensure that its backend enterprise billing and support systems will accommodate the device when it ships. Analysts are baffled by the move. In addition to running an OS X-based operating system, which enterprises may be reluctant to adopt, the iPhone is also expected to have a number of shortcomings for business users, including not having a removable battery and not having buttons, which would make it difficult to dial while driving says Gartner's Ken Dulaney. Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also thinks the iPhone won't be a good option for enterprise customers because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone."

I dont think businesses will care what it runs

[RobertM1968]

I dont think businesses will care what it runs

I think businesses will be concerned with how it integrates with the things they need/do. Will it be able to open Office files? Will it be able to synchronize with Outlook? Does it make phone calls? Will it be able to synchronize contacts and such?

None of those should be beyond the capabilities of the phone... it is all just a matter of what actually is implemented (or implementable with minor work) when the phone is released.

Can't dial "while driving"....

[arthurpaliden]

Hum. I thought that you were not supposed to use a cell phone while driving because it distracts you from the more important task at hand which is guiding upwards of several tons of steel safely down the road without killing any one.

A little early?

[MightyYar]

Isn't it a little early to write this thing off as a business tool? Does anyone actually have one in their possession? Most of the executives with Crackberries use them for email, so I fail to see where the requirements for entry are real high. If the thing is deemed to be more of a status symbol than a Blackberry, executives will want it and it will be used as a business tool. AT&T might just be trying to keep it from being perceived as a toy, or "for kids". All it has to do is be a good email platform.

That said, I'm skeptical that it will make a good email platform without a real keyboard :)

Sure they won't

[iamacat]

...because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone...

• Because Apple will not release software for Windows before the hell freezes over
  
• Because Macs will never use Intel processors
  
• Because iPod will never play video and iTunes store will never sell movies
  
• Because Apple will never make a cell phone
  

It does have a web browser...

[Tanlis]

Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also thinks the iPhone won't be a good option for enterprise customers because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone."

Here's an idea...Write a web app!

It's so ingenious, I'm going to patent it. :D

I imagine you'll be able to store files locally and if you can access them thru Safari on the phone, than just do that. If not, write some security and put it on an extranet.

Wrong

[fistfullast33l]

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means and I'm definitely not buying an iPhone.

How did the RAZR succeed? By being a high priced toy to the wealthy at first. How did Blackberry succeed? By being a high priced email toy for business elites. The iPhone really combines both - a sleek design with email, web, and calendar built in. The downside is that it isn't compatible with Outlook.

But, for the low low price of $500, only the elitist of the elite will be able to afford it. And Apple will open it up for development if a large enough enterprise requests it. They want the marketshare and if a Wall Street Bank or Music Studio requests it, they'll do it to add to the cool factor of having those rich famous people carry it around - just like the RAZR and the Blackberry.

Reading Gartner

[ackthpt]

1. Take grain of salt.

2. Read Gartner analysis.

3. Consume Ripple as required.

Re:I dont think businesses will care what it runs

[Reader X]

They keep saying that because Microsoft keeps babbling that because it's a closed platform, you for some reason can't install applications on it [macnn.com], which is 1) wrong and 2) silly.

Re:What's that smell / noise ?

[Archangel Michael]

This is the real reason RIM is releasing Crackberry tools for WinCE and other platforms. They see the real threat, its called "iPhone"

Employees will like it

[hey]

If businesses let employees pick their phones (and this is a choice) then they'll go for this nice phone. Who wouldn't.

Re:Wrong

[ScrewMaster]

I think the GP was referring to the Starship Enterprise.

But I tend to agree, let the early adopters pay a premium, pay back the development costs, help Apple work out the bugs and design issues, and then lower the price for the masses.

Worked for Microsoft, except for the "bugs and design issues" part.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course AT&T is going to market to the enterprise side.
Apple is going to market to the teenagers and 'trend setters' and in the meantime, AT&T will market to the enterprise side. They don't NEED to market to anywhere else but the enterprise side! Apple's got the rest covered

Re:Can't dial "while driving"....

[__aaclcg7560]

It is in California unless you're using a headset to keep both hands free for driving. On a side note, I had a friend who was still talking on the cell phone when he got pulled over for running a red light and the officer came to the window. He didn't like the ticket that the officer gave him.

Re:I dont think businesses will care what it runs

[RobertM1968]

Actually, it does... next time read the whole thing before you post. Click the link to the whole article, scroll down an entire pageview and read this part...

"Scenario Poker showing up on Apple's Widget page and listing iPhone compatibility may not necessarily mean that Apple has blessed the application for the iPhone. It is possible this may just be a display of optimism on the part of Scenario Software. Apple has to date not shown any non-Apple applications/Widgets running on the iPhone.Thanks John!"

Apple not "blessing" it, yet allowing the "iPhone compatible" labelling, to me, is read as "this isnt endorsed or written my Apple, but is iPhone compatible".

Unless I am wrong, that is what the phrase "iPhone compatible" means by any stretch of the imagination. Because someone else wants to redefine that phrase to mean "optimistically maybe iPhone compatible" to me is more of a troll response by the author of the article/post.

I could be wrong, but Apple has a track record of not allowing ambiguous (or in this case, flat out wrong) posts of that sort on their site... yeah, they have slipped up on those regards in the past, but it is few and far between.

Wait, what? OSX as a disadvantage on embedded hw?

[allanc]

The implication being that the Blackberry has done so well because of all of the corporate PCs and servers running the Blackberry OS?

It's not an enterprise product!

[Paulrothrock]

It doesn't integrate with Exchange Server, it has a music and movie player, and it can operate as a hard drive. This isn't an "Enterprise" product, this is a consumer product. This should be marketed as a replacement for your phone and your iPod, not as something middle-management uses to interfere with the folks who do the real work.

Web Apps

[whisper_jeff]

"...because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone."

It's too bad that companies can't write apps that run on websites.

It's too bad that the iPhone won't be able to browse websites with a fully-functional web browser.

Oh. Wait.

Re:Wrong

[MightyYar]

Worked for Microsoft

Man, you aren't kidding... in the days when Palm still ruled, those CE machines were awful. I still can't believe how they tried to mash the entire Win95 interface into such a tiny little screen. Most people weren't that interested in filling up a $200 8MB memory card full of crappy audio or video to play on their $600 "pocket-sized" CE brick - they first and foremost wanted an organizer.

What a coup that they've managed to turn around and actually supplant the PalmOS on some Treos, though I suppose this says as much about Palm's ineptitude as it does MS's success.

And working in Apple's favor is a whole legion of early adopters that will buy anything with the little apple on it - similar to the people who bought those early CE machines.

iPhone critics: Apple is 2 steps ahead of you

[mveloso]

Some companies learn lessons the hard way - by failing. Apple's had a number of large failures, but has managed to learn from those failures and make better things with higher margins.

Most companies in the tech industry can't handle more than one or two failures; they tend to go bankrupt. Those companies that survive product failures tend to try and forget about them instead of learn from them. For example, Microsoft could have learned a lot from Micrsoft Bob, if they so desired. Instead, they buried old Bob in the back and abandoned all attempts to do any radical user interface changes for Windows.

Apple, on the other hand, has a large number of failures to draw from, all of which are extensively documented. Apple also has a large number of successes, most of which probably haven't been documented enough. Why has the iPod really succeeded? Why and how has Mac OS X (and the Mac) been an unstoppable locomotive of progress?

The Enterprise market is smaller than you think, and requires substantial investments with questionable returns. Allowing developers onto your platform incurrs substantial support and infrastructure costs. Enterprise demands also tend to warp your perspective, as large accounts exert greater leverage on the development process than thousands of individuals. They also don't pay retail, and tend to demand substantial up-front and back-end discounts.

Apple has bypassed this in a simple manner, with a simple question: why have your enterprise apps on the phone when you have a live browser connection? If you can get to salesforce.com, google apps, and your custom web-enabled apps, who cares whether you can install a binary or not? In fact, not having to install anything is much better - no management issues. It's the freaking web, already. Everything that's important has been webified. Anything that isn't yet will be in 5 years. Everything that isn't nobody cares about.

The only "enterprise" feature of the iPhone would be the ability to hard-wire it to your corporate network instead of using the public network. That's it. If the iPhone can do that, then the internal IT guys can do the rest.

Re:Sure they won't

[QuantumRiff]

No, you don't understand, A blog said that another blog read in an unofficial interview with "someone familiar with apple" that they wouldn't be allowing developers to write code for it. It must be true!

Re:The Enterprise

[pilgrim23]

"...not having buttons, which would make it difficult to dial while driving" I am sure that like the last fellow texting in traffic in front of me, you will be just as capable of endangering life and limb. You should be paying attentiont o the 2 tons of metal you are piloting. seriously. SHUT UP AND DRIVE!

Re:Wrong

[Wiseleo]

Microsoft WM5.0 trumps all this with one simple feature - VoiceCommand.

No matter how cool "You had me at scrolling" is, you can't tell iPhone to do something with your voice. You can in fact do with with a Windows Mobile 5.0 device.

Seamless integration with Exchange is THE killer app for WM5.0

I am one of Microsoft's top resellers of WM5.0 technology, so I know what I am talking about here. It's the punchline of my presentation for BlackBerry and iPhone questions.

Who wouldn't? Me!

[argent]

Give me the choice of an iPhone and a plain black-and-white nokia bar-of-soap... I'll take the Nokia.

Look at the iPhone's battery life on apple.com.

Apply an adjustment for pre-release optimism.

Apply a reality adjustment - the only way to get listed standby times is to run your tests next to a tower.

You're gonna want two extra chargers, for the car and the office, because that's pitiful battery life even BEFORE you apply those adjustments.

Re:I dont think businesses will care what it runs

[ivan256]

I think businesses will be concerned with how it integrates with the things they need/do. Will it be able to open Office files? Will it be able to synchronize with Outlook? Does it make phone calls?

For the original Blackberry, the answer to all of those questions was "No".

Enterprise users can't write apps? Says who?

[DragonWriter]

Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also thinks the iPhone won't be a good option for enterprise customers because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone.

Certainly, Jobs has indicated that the iPhone will only, at least initially, support Apple-approved signed applications. He has not said, that I know of, that third parties could not develop apps and get them approved by Apple, or that there would not facilities to alter the subset of Apple-approved apps available on different iPhones, such that those to the general public would allow all "general" apps, but not apps only approved for a particular enterprise, while an enterprise user could restrict its iPhones to only allow a subset of general apps and its own enterprise apps. This seems to be rampant speculation with little basis passing itself off as informed commentary. Note: I'm not saying the iPhone will have these features, I'm just saying that there is no indication, that I am aware of, that it won't, so simply claiming that enterprise users won't be able to install their own apps seems to call out for some reason to believe it.

Suits will love it

[Krommenaas]

Dunno about the US but I'm almost certain that here in Europe the iPhone will be a big hit among the suits, especially early on when they're a curiousity and too expensive for most consumers. Never mind the features, it'll be a little status symbol and a bit of style you can buy. It's not like corporations have carefully weighed the pros and cons of all available cars and decided that only Mercedes, BMW and Audi have the features that suits need most, yet that's what 99% of them drive. As long as Apple can't bring down the price of the iPhone enough to make it a mass product like the iPod, it needs to target this market which will pay a premium for a prestige product. They would need a bigger range of iPhones then, and make sure the more expensive ones are visually distinguishable, to cater to the whole corporate hierarchy.

Re:Wrong

[WhiteWolf666]

I'm a huge Apple fan, but I'm with you on this one.

How is my Moto Q better than an iPhone?

1. EVDO versus EDGE. No contest. EVDO (or WCDMA, or any 3G mobile broadband technology) means (two way) streaming video, and a high-speed, interactive Web 2.0 experience, unlike crap-ass EDGE. No one will be willing to use OWA, or any other "rich" website, over EDGE. EDGE is horrible. Trust me, I relied on it for over a year.
2. Huge library of installable software.
3. Excellent, no-training-required voice control.
4. Google Maps for Mobile (with GPS and traffic support). Skype for Mobile. Did I mention Apps? :-)
5. Replaceable battery. Outside carrying two batteries, this allows me to get an extended life after-market battery, or to replace my battery when it starts to run down after 2 years of heavy use (this _will_ happen to your $500 iPhone).

Quite frankly, anyone talks about using rich web apps on Safari on an iPhone is speaking rubbish. Wifi sucks in comparison to true mobile broadband, and EDGE is unworkable for anyone without a great deal of patience.

The iPhone will be a combination voice phone and iPod, with the occasional ability to check e-mail. It will suck as a PDA. It will suck for browsing the web. It will not support "rich" applications the way a Windows Mobile, Palm, or Symbian device does now. It will be painful to download 500k+ PDFs on. It will not stream music, video, movies, or anything else.

It will not support mobile TV. It will not be an always-connected-to-iTunes video ipod.

For me, as a _huge_ Apple fan, buying an iPhone would be a giant step backwards. I watch video now, wherever I want. My Q handles 99% of all the e-mail activity I could want. As a PDA, my Q eliminates all the "light work" tasks I used to do on my laptop. An iPhone could never do this.

Re:Wrong

[cayenne8]

"But, for the low low price of $500, only the elitist of the elite will be able to afford it."

For some reason, there seems to be a number of slashdotters that think $500 is a lot of money.

It still is to me, but, there are a TON of people out there where $1K-$3K is pocket change!!

There are a lot of wealthy people out there who would gladly dole out $500 to get a new 'toy'. You don't even have to be a doctor or lawyer type either...plenty of people out there making money...so please, don't kid yourself, $500 is not a lot of money to a lot of people.

There is a market for things like this...

ActiveSync is the missing ingredient

[glenmark]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: ActiveSync is an essential ingredient for the success of any smartphone device in the Enterprise market (and will eventually be the death knell for RIM). Even Palm has realized this with the addition of ActiveSync support in the Treo 650 and later. ActiveSync support is even more crucial now since Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) is not included in Exchange 2007. Nay-say MS all you want, but Enterprise customers live or die by groupware connectivity, and Exchange is the king of the hill right now.

Re:Wrong

[coleridge78]

People who are "enterprise"-centric are hilarious.

IMAP servers have done 'push' for a decade or more. It's called the IDLE command, and I haven't seen a server or (non-web) client that doesn't support it for a long, long time. The rest of us have been happily using it while the miniscule "enterprise" market (which consists of a few incestuous clueless droids making up a very small percentage of the overall market, whereas most businesses are somewhat smarter) stumbles around pissing themselves over MS/RIM's proprietary "solution" that requires more horsepower to support 200 users than IMAP needs to support 200,000. Literally.

Just hilarious. I hope you all enjoy wacking off while everyone else in the world is getting work done. :)