Analyst: iPhone making headway in businesses

One of Apple’s goals for the iPhone was to make it a device suitable for the consumer and business markets. According to one analyst, that may be happening.

iPhone 3G S In a note to clients on Monday, Deutsche Bank research analyst Chris Whitmore said there is “growing evidence that the iPhone is making inroads into the Enterprise.” Whitmore expects corporations to account for the purchase of 2 million iPhones by the end of the year.

In March 2008, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing, said the company was working hard to make the iPhone a device companies would want to adopt. Many of the features, like push email and calendaring, automatic setup and remote wipe put the iPhone up against the BlackBerry.

With the release of those features and more in iPhone OS 3.0 and 3.1, Apple has increased the level of competition in the business market. Whitmore said other factors that are improving Apple’s fortunes in the enterprise market in clude the number of apps available for that market on the iPhone, user satisfaction, and sluggish competition from RIM and Microsoft.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kel-Stewart/681907527 Kel Stewart

These are all good points you raise here Jim but there is another key point here which is missed. Here in Australia it is about $700 a year per handset cheaper to run. The average cost to a business of a Blackberry is approximately $1700 whereas an iPhone costs approximately $1000 a year a business in actual running costs etc.

I am not too sure if this is the case in the US, but this is obviously a good motivating factor for businesses within Australia, especially ones which I deal with are making the switch from Blackberry to iPhone.

So at least within Australia it’s actually cheaper for them to run and maintain which helps their bottom line.

Jim Dalrymple

Very interesting Kel. What factors determine the running costs for a handset?

Anonymous

As a business iPhone user and former BlackBerry user, I find my favourite feature is not having to dig out my sync cable to sync my calendar everyday. The fact that I can sync my contacts and my schedule via MobileMe is a huge plus.