iPhone Undermining Microsoft in Enterprise?

Microsoft best get Windows Mobile 7 to market, and soon, because its delay may be causing the company to lose traction in the enterprise market. In a note to clients Thursday, UBS Securities analyst Maynard Um noted that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone is making some inroads in the enterprise space and they’re coming at Microsoft’s (MSFT) expense.

“We believe Apple is likely gaining some iPhone traction in enterprise with 19 of top 100 Fortune 1000 companies having iPhones deployed,” Um wrote. “However, we do not think this is a displacement of solutions such as BlackBerry but, rather, believe it is likely at the expense of other Microsoft Exchange capable smartphones.”

Um sees great opportunity in this trend, as long as Apple is willing to step up its game a bit. “In order for Apple to gain greater traction in the enterprise market,” he writes, “the company must overcome some issues including providing 24×7 customer support, providing more future product roadmap details (to allow large enterprises to build ahead and prepare), provide alternatives to OS upgrades solely from iTunes desktop application.”

Ironic, isn’t it, to read such a note in light of all the smack Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once talked about the iPhone. “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share,” he said in 2007. “No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”

Original post

Comments

[Rokjok777:]

Apple is taking a page out of Blackberry's book. Just get a device execs like in their hands and enterprise IT will have to respond. Microsoft better get their skates on and the new phone OS has a lot of catching up to do...My suggestion is to put the ptototype into some users hands and ask them for feedback. What a concept!

Aug 07 06:00 PM

[Frank Castle:]

I'm sorry but being right in this veritical and overseeing thousands of deployed smartphones this outlines some of what Apple will need to become anything more then a niche in enterprise. I doubt Apple will put in the needed effort and instead allow 3rd party solutions to fill this gap (Good, Trust Digial, Sybase etc). The major problem right now is iPhone security is a joke so for any company that has compliance concerns / regulatory controls to adhere to - they want nothing to do with iPhone as it currently is.

The OS is jailbroken within hours of updating, allowing access to tools to circumvent any security you enforce via EAS.

The 3GS "encryption" is anything but and has been shown to be cracked in less then 10 mins - with full data copy in less then an hour. Remote Wipe is useless in a window like that. Any CTO/CIO/CRO should be not comfortable with security like that on any other platform used for corporate data. Did TJX not teach anyone the value of data protection?

A roadmap would be nice but I'd give anything to dump the whole iTunes bit for activation and OS updates. An enterprise controlled AppStore would be nice too so one could control what apps are allowed on corporate liable devices and a means to deploy company developed applications.

Blackberry's "book" was get the security right first. That allowed enterprise to extend mobility and know everything was secure.

In Microsoft's case - I think at this point its a lost cause. Their management of WinMo via Exchange is woefully lacking compared to BES and SCMDM2008 is a bear to configure / admin and has a higher ROI / TCO then BES. So unless you already have a good size WinMo investment - nothing is prompting anyone to migrate to it. EAS is a poor mans BES - it's great if all you want is mobile access to email but once you move beyond that you see all that BES provides enterprise - that no one is close to equaling.

One to watch - mobileiron .. they have a unique approach and sould be a major player if it works like the claim.

Aug 08 08:10 AM