by Elias Shams
On my way back to DC from NYC yesterday, I read an interesting article about one of Google’s vice-president, John Herlihy and his view of desktops vs smartphones. He is predicting the desktops will be irrelevant in three years time and the Smartphones will take over. Well, given they are not in PC business, and having aggressively exercised their push for the Android Operating System and Nexus One, no surprise there for his prediction. Frankly, this was expected. In fact, I covered such prediction a few times on my blog. I guess we should thank Apple, Google, and RIM for the launch of their iPhone, Android, Nexus One, BlackBerry, and now iPad which has significantly contributed the path to such direction.
The rise of Cloud Computing in conjunction with widget-style applications developed for the mobile phone platform have contributed to faster adaptation of doing many tasks via our smartphones. I also think the testosterone war between Apple and Adobe over HTML5 vs Adobe’s Flash that began since the launch of iPad last month will be a factor in such transformation.
Anyway, what does all this mean to the corporate market? How would they know which smartphones to pick for their employees? Once such transformation kicks in, how about blocking certain sites on smartphones that you can do with the desktops in corporate networks today? How would they stop the employees from watching porn during working hours? If you are a man reading this, you know what I am talking about. On average, how much do we spend on porn? 101% of our time! 
Such phenomena will certainly be a big headache for the CIOs and CTOs of the companies responsible for thousands of the corporate employees. Not to mention the installed base of applications, the data, platform transparency, the firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS) at VPN endpoints, and file structure coming with such transformation which I will address- in a different post.
If you are an enterprise IT manager trying to make sense of all this, and trying to figure out which smartphones to select for the employees who need one, here are a few tips for you to consider.
Before getting into specific device choices, you need to define the criteria and the needs:
First, the frequency that employees will need to carry or access phones for voice calls, text messaging, and in some cases, email, calendar, phone book, and other applications.
Second, the type of information needed to access? Are they the information stored on the open Internet or behind the company firewall, or whether the employees need to create work while in the field, and if so, what type of work. Any needs to access data collection, PowerPoint presentations, or long memos or other documents?
Third, whether the employee and the employer understand the basics about wireless and Internet access, as Internet is not a mission-critical network, and Wireless connectivity is not always available. Our wireless devices can best be described as being always on and ‘most of the time connected’. There is no guarantee of connectivity, nor is there a guarantee that you will always be able to access the information you want and need when on the road if you are connected. Data that resides only in the cloud or behind your corporate firewall is not always accessible.
Once the criteria are defined, you can then evaluate different types of wireless devices in the hands of the right employee. To make such determination, you really need to evaluate the right Smartphone OS (operating systems). Questions like:
a) Are they business friendly?
b) Which ones provide easy set-up and access to corporate email and information, support data encryption?
c) Which ones can be remotely managed by IT departments?
Based on my own personal experiences and coverage of BlackBerry, Android, iPhone, and reviews on other type of smartphones, here is how I would rank them for business use:
1. RIM (BlackBerry OS)
2. Microsoft (Windows Mobile OS)
3. Nokia (Symbian OS)
4. Apple (iPhone OS)
5. Sprint (Palm OS)
6. Google (Android OS)
Although, I have an Android myself, it is certainly not made for the enterprise. Even Google says so. At least for now. Android does not support most of the business functions listed above. They say they will offer that in the near future. So, for now, they are at the bottom of the list. You need to follow their progress very closely.
While, Android, Droid, iPhone, and Nexus One are the most popular smartphones for the consumers, they are not for corporate use yet. They can’t handle the corporate email, calendar, and address book functions quite well. All of the other operating systems provide solutions that will work in the corporate environment, some with more capabilities than others.
BlackBerry is primarily for the enterprise market for its robustness – particularly its awesome synchronization with the corporate applications. The downside to the BlackBerry platform is its weakness in browsing the Internet. The screen size and the slow page download times make- the BlackBerry not nearly as robust as the iPhone or Android.
As for Windows Mobile Phones, I never had one. My evaluation is based on reading reviews and feedback from former colleagues who had one. Microsoft certainly lost some ground in the mobility space in recent years. They do a good job of integrating desktop and server-based Microsoft applications with those on the handheld. It will continue to be a player in this space and perhaps gain more market share when it releases Windows Phone 7.
As for Nokia Symbian OS, I would say they do most of the functions as Windows Mobile Phones and BlackBerry, but not as business friendly as either one of them.
As for the iPhone, I would say their third version is decent for the enterprise market. The first version of the iPhone was pretty much a consumer oriented product and not at all business friendly. However, with the 3GS model, it is a solid choice for business customers, partly because of improvements to interface with Microsoft Outlook and partly, because of it is ease in writing company-specific applications-. Not to mention the iPhone‘s ability to multitask. You can send and receive messages while on a voice call, which works very smoothly on the iPhone today and will become commonplace for all smartphones in the near future. [As far as I know all the smartphones can do that – I can certainly do that on my Nokia]
Here are a few interesting related surveys conducted by ZDNet UK late last year. Looking at the statistics, it appears that the smartphones are breaking out of the ‘only-for-the-suits’ niche they occupied. That said, many companies are still conservative when it comes to anything that smacks of consumer frippery, with the usability of the iPhone almost counting against it in some circles, where seriousness goes hand in hand with complexity and a poorly thought-out user-interface.
Would you cast your vote?
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Tagged: android, Apple, Apple iPhone OS, Blackberry, cloud computing, Desktops, desktops will be irrelevant, enterprise, flash, google, Google Android OS, HTML5, iPad, John Herlihy, Microsoft Windows Mobile OS, Nexus One, Nokia Symbian OS, review of smartphones, RIM BlackBerry OS, RIM iPhone, smartphone, Smartphone OS smartphone operating systems, smartphones, smartphones review, Sprint Palm OS, Windows Phone 7
