David WaltersBy David Walters, chief technology officer, LBM
Increasingly, boundaries are fading between home and office particularly in my field of IT. So I suspect the market will be demanding the functionality and practicality from a single business device that will allow you to combine the best of both worlds. Telephony, SMS and business email will be as important as Internet, music and video.
Practically, reading emails and attachments on an iPhone is easier. I love the pinch technology that allows me to expand the screen with touch and the ability to switch the screen from portrait to landscape. PDFs don’t work well on a BlackBerry as they blur when you try to expand iPhone fixes this and the screen is big enough to read attachments. Typing is also easy on the iPhone using the on-screen keyboard.
I’ve been surprised at how well IT infrastructure and security have received the iPhone. My team likes the Cisco VPN compatibility as well as the single hardware platform. Too many variants of BlackBerry devices make virtual support that little bit more difficult.
As we are all aware, Apple is one of the most globally recognised brands with the marketing know-how and resource to go with it. To date, it has focused most of its efforts on the consumer market, but as soon as it puts a concerted effort into snaring the business user, I shouldn’t imagine it will be too long before there is a serious alternative to BlackBerry.
The blurring of boundaries between work and pleasure, handset practicality, IT infrastructure, Apple’s marketing and wow factor of ownership will combine to ensure the guys at BlackBerry are kept on their toes.
Drew Nicholson
By Drew Nicholson, MD, DNX
Politicians never say never, but barring unsurpassed acts of looniness I’ll bet a quid BlackBerry will continue to be the dominant force in mobile business communications in the next three years.
The emotion in favour of Apple will be built around design and brand appeal before functionality (because that is why all its products get talked about). The new iPhone will undoubtedly work brilliantly too, but the bigger issue is not what Apple has but what it doesn’t have.
And what it doesn’t have is ironic, because Apple’s usual trick of appropriating the language (‘iPod’ rather than ‘MP3 player’ becoming the colloquial) is in this case already taken and BlackBerry has taken the high ground.
BlackBerry is a noun, a verb and a cool (‘I’ve arrived’) way of business life that millions of users have embraced like few other products of such a young age. Why? Well apart from its cool but business-like image (Apple is not the world’s only strong technology brand) it has a great track record of doing exactly what it says it will do and remember, what it is there for is mobile email, then phone, then web in that order (and the new products such as the Bold handset with great new graphics will do even more).
It also syncs seamlessly with PC environments, a perception that Apple still struggles with.
FDs use BlackBerrys and they’ll approve them all day long over ‘iPod derivatives’ (maybe iPod’s strength here is its Achilles heel).Times are tough out there, Mr FD will be ‘back to basics’, exhorting ROI and caution and I think that plays to its upgrade strategy very nicely.
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