Corporate IT Hanging Up on Apple's iPhone

WSJdpatton writes "iPhones can be used for email, but many businesses don't plan to sync them with internal systems used to power Blackberries and Microsoft mobile devices. Employees eager to use the cool new gadget, however, may pressure IT departments to support iPhones even if it means incurring more costs and changing policies. The WSJ reports: 'Incompatible technology has become an increasing problem for businesses as hand-held email and phone devices are evolving into minicomputers that can do such things as download music, take pictures and surf the Web. In the past, businesses have been unwilling to support certain devices, like those with cameras, for instance, because of concerns employees could use them to document company secrets. But these tensions would be magnified if the iPhone is as popular as Apple is hoping and some analysts expect.'"

Comments

Yawn

[nevali]

"Businesses probably shouldn't rely on proprietary communications technology, because people will bitch and moan when they discover that it is, in fact, proprietary"

Film at 11.

Re:Yawn

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Businesses probably shouldn't rely on proprietary communications technology

Are you talking about MS, Apple or RIM?

Re:Yawn

[Saint Fnordius]

Apparently the WSJ author means MS Outlook lock-in, but I'm willing to wager Lotus Notes was meant as well. Many IT departments hang on to it as a way of defending their little empire. Unix and Mac users in fact liked to joke that part of why Windows took over the corporate world lies in how much support it needs, and so choosing it meant ensuring the company would still need you and even give you some underlings.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has nailed better than I could here.

...wtf. iPhone is completely standard.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

WTF. Corporate IT is fucking weird. The iPhone is POP3/IMAP and SMTP

What's so "nonstandard" about that?!

Re:Summary of the article.

[Professor_UNIX]

Companies who've locked themselves in to a proprietary email system can't change when a new proprietary product is available.

iPhone just uses IMAP and POP3 for downloading mail. How on earth would you consider that proprietary. The proprietary mail systems are idiots who use Exchange without IMAP support enabled or use Blackberries.

CEO

[Tom]

Let's face it, in most companies it'll work like this:

If the CEO gets an iPhone, the IT suddenly has a high priority action item to make sure it works with the corporate messaging system.

If any VP gets an iPhone, the IT will have a low priority action item to get it working.

If anyone else gets an iPhone, they'll be told it violates the corporate IT policy and they need to use something else for corporate messaging.