Costs, functionality, flexibility all under the microscope...
- MICEBTN archive stories issue 27
- Friday, 09 February 2007
Business queries iPhone as Apple pushes its ‘next generation miracle’
APPLE is already facing questions from business on the usefulness of its yet-to-be-released iPhone, spurred by concerns that employees might pressure their employers to support it through IT departments and Help Desks.
The iPhone, due out in the US later this year, is a music and video player, smartphone, and Internet device combined.
The concern from IT network administrators, however, is that it might be too restrictive to be worth buying, despite its enthusiastic welcome from the general public.
The iPhone’s drawbacks are said to include a relatively slow data network and a closed OS X platform that limits available applications.
In a Microsoft-dominated business world, that alone is enough to sink it and according to commentator Current Analysis, there is “absolutely no current case for enterprise use of the iPhone” although other commentators have said some of its shortcomings could be rectified in the short term.
In its present form, however, they say the iPhone will not view or edit MS Office documents, nor will it support secure corporate email.
And even if its MS shortcomings are ironed out, “...you may have a tough time convincing IT managers and corporate accounting to buy widescreen iPods for employee use,” CA said.
CA also said there are other issues, such as a lack of keys (hard buttons) on the device. Also, buyers can’t add applications to it — and there are no games.
Further, the battery isn’t removable, which is a problem if you want to know when to stop watching video or listening to music so you can safely take business calls without the phone dying when you’re talking to a customer.
Regarding the video player capabilities, CA said: “If you’re thinking of it as a widescreen iPod video for movies and TV, even the 8GB model fills up too quickly. The first TiVo and ReplayTV PVRs had 20GB of storage, and even then that was seen as paltry. Apple’s iPod video models come in 30GB and 80GB sizes.” Other commentators have since pointed out that iPhone is not really widescreen, either.
And finally, the camera is only two megapixel and it doesn’t do video recording.
Any functionality and IT concerns are matched by corporate CFOs, who are worried by the buy price (US$500 a unit) and (in the US launch market) being tied to the Cingular phone network on a two-year contract.
The question being asked in US boardrooms is quite simple: How many of our senior executives and marketing/sales people will buy their own iPhones and when they do, what will it cost for our IT departments to support them?
And if we accept the iPhone as ‘our responsibility’, what will the data plans cost? Current Cingular data plans are US$45 a month, according to CA.
