AT&T to Target iPhone to Enterprise

narramissic writes "AT&T is reportedly preparing to market the iPhone to business users and is scurrying to ensure that its backend enterprise billing and support systems will accommodate the device when it ships. Analysts are baffled by the move. In addition to running an OS X-based operating system, which enterprises may be reluctant to adopt, the iPhone is also expected to have a number of shortcomings for business users, including not having a removable battery and not having buttons, which would make it difficult to dial while driving says Gartner's Ken Dulaney. Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also thinks the iPhone won't be a good option for enterprise customers because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone."

Comments

Business will laugh at the iPhone; they already do

[postbigbang]

1) it's not even a 3.5g phone-- it's a 1st generation phone
2) there's little room for third party apps unless you want to play Apple's usary for the privilege
3) the phone has inherent security problems because of #1 (think old GSM phones and how easily they're cracked)
4) you can't get high speed anything on the phone, not even GPRS speed, let alone UMTS/Edge, or even something reasonably kewl
5) No Outlook. No SmackBerry. And I'm only betting here, but no Vista support (iTunes-- hello???)
6) Poorly designed UI-- no key depression feedback as there are no keys; and no 'say command' apps in this generation
7) Can't get at the battery??!!??? Who are these guys fooling???
8) Can't change the SIM!!!!!! Imagine, every EU roamer will throw the iPhone under a train!
9) Ok, it won't get a virus..... for a while.

Let's take your business user case arguments and apply them against the above, not to mention the price, the captive (I won't even get into popularity here) carrier, and the fact that there are a lot of bright minds far, far ahead of Apple in this market. Now tell me that business users are going to swallow this up. At least the RAZR can proxy via Bluetooth-- an EV.DO connection.