The Apple iPhone may have got a makeover last week but it's not enough to convince CIOs the device has a place in business.
In ZDNet Asia's sister site silicon.com's latest CIO Jury, IT chiefs were asked whether they're planning to offer Apple's touchscreen device as part of their range of corporate mobile phones--and the vast majority of IT chiefs said they are not.
Tech chiefs dismissed the iPhone option for a variety of reasons ranging from poor battery life to even a fear of appearing profligate.
Only two of the 12 IT chiefs were willing to give it a vote of corporate confidence.
However, the remaining 10 members of the CIO Jury are not heading to Cupertino--at least, not yet.
Gavin Megnauth, director of operations & group IT for recruiter Morgan Hunt, said although the iPhone has its attractions there are still big drawbacks to the device.
"While there is clearly some momentum to accept iPhones as a corporate tool we won't be adopting at this juncture. The iPhone battery life simply doesn't compare to that of a BlackBerry and speed of use as a mobile email tool still doesn't compare," he said.
"Our research suggests that companies adopting the iPhone are the sort of companies where the PDA is an executive status symbol rather than a workhorse to genuinely aid the productivity of staff," he added.
There are also too many potential iPhone "cons" for David Suthers, CIO of Masterlease: "High cost of ownership, lock-in to O2 and potential abuse of company resources via iTunes would be my main reasons [against it]," he said.
For Rob Neil, head of ICT and customer services at Ashford Borough Council, the main reason to avoid the iPhone is the fact it's not available from the Council's corporate mobile telephony provider.
However, he added that there could also be issues around the perception of the device: "Whilst it is undoubtedly a fine email and mobile internet client, with useful GPS apps, I can just see the headlines saying 'council gives free iPod to staff'."
Meanwhile Ben Booth, global chief technology officer for Ipsos, believes security is still a bugbear.
"The new model boasts lots more consumer-oriented features but (as far as I can see from the press releases) the basic security weaknesses have not been addressed," he said.
But the iPhone's charms are clearly hard at work elsewhere. While it's "not yet" on the menu at ITN, Ian Auger, head of IT & communications, said: "It is becoming more attractive though."
The Apple mobile is also turning heads at Sodexo--albeit as non-corporate devices.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIO, Northern Europe, said the company offers BlackBerrys for "enhanced functionality/mobility users" and standard mobiles for the majority of staff but a "large number of colleagues" use iPhones as personal devices. It has no plans to offer corporate iPhones however.
One company already offering iPhones as corporate devices is Harvey Nash.
"We already provision the device to senior sales people and see the new version as offering an increased set of capabilities/capacity to widen this pool even further," Alastair Behenna, CIO at the recruiter, said.
Another iPhone fan is Mike Roberts, IT director of The London Clinic, who spoke up for the iPhone's Outlook connectivity skills.
"We use BlackBerry now and the iPhone offers better connectivity with Outlook," he said.
Natasha Lomas of silicon.com reported from London.
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CIO naysayers feeding discontent?
It's quite evident from some of the comments that some of the panel have neither read the Apple deployment guides nor analysed the comparative security risks. Methinks there's an element of knowing what you know and not investigating what you don't.
Having spent some time actually doing my homework, I think that Apple's solution is different not inherently bad. Un-pwned, iPhone OS has key elements ahead of many devices in an aging estate. Not least is the fact that the OS actually gets updated universally. The key thing that Apple need to work on is a way of blocking connections from handsets on older OS versions and those which have been pwned. Enterprise iTunes would be useful too.
So aside from the management view, here's the thing. Your employees are voting with their feet. I wonder what would be saved on costs and what gains could be made on employee satisfaction if CIOs found a way of managing capable devices that the employees are funding?
Posted by anonymous on Thursday, June 18 2009 05:19 PM