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Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there were phones for business users and phones for the rest of us lazy plebs who just preferred playing snake and sending “OK” SMS messages to one another.
Nowadays, however, with smartphones becoming the “must-have” devices for anyone under the age of 40 in the developed world, the distinction between enterprise phone and consumer phone is blurring and so are the distinctions between which operating systems are business focused and which are more for personal use.
RIM’s Blackberry phone used to be exclusively targeted at the business user and its OS, considered outdated and clunky by some, was excused by the fact it wasn’t meant to be “user-friendly” but “enterprise friendly.” Want your emails pushed to your phone? Want your work calendar synched? Get a Blackberry. Want to play NFL football on your phone? Get an iPhone, after all, there’s an app for that.
Slowly but surely, however, the lines have not just blurred, but merged. Microsoft, which used to be all about enterprise with its Windows Mobile operating system, came out in February with its plans for Windows Phone 7, a social networked-to-the-nines, consumer, sugar coated operating system which should – and probably does – make the serious business phone user shudder. After all, it may be social networking to tweet and facebook on one’s phone, but it’s also social-not-working. A less desirable side effect for busy employees.
When tweets, IM and status updates become more prominent features on a phone than MS Office integration, email push, and calendar synch, there’s a problem.
The problem is that operating systems are having an identity crisis, or rather a mid-life crisis: aging, but wanting to return to their youth and doing so in an embarrassing and overly flamboyant manner which leaves onlookers cringing. A Windows phone which can notify you every time Lady Gaga tweets? Please, it’s like watching an 80 year old take a 20 year old blond for a spin in his souped up Ferrari.
Android, Google’s mobile OS, has seen phenomenal growth over the past year, but does it know what it wants to be? Is it consumer or enterprise? Is it for teens and tweens or for corporate suits? Is Blackberry becoming fashionable with teens only because its Blackberry messenger function allows them to contact random strangers and flirt? What alternate universe are we living in?
The Software as a Services (SaaS) model which for so long has gone hand in hand with enterprise is now being co-opted by the likes of Google and Apple to host games and apps in the cloud. Less and less information is being stored on the devices themselves, which in many ways is a good thing, but may also pose some grave dangers for firms betting all or nothing.
Google is one such company. “Google is betting big time on the cloud. If the cloud doesn’t emerge as quickly or as deeply as expected, Google will be at a major disadvantage, given Android’s weak security model for on-board apps, and a lack of enterprise management capability,” says analyst Jack Gold. Meanwhile, “BlackBerry is at disadvantage in the cloud based on an underperforming browser but it has a key thick client advantage with its traditional reliance on Java apps, and its compelling advantage in security and manageability,” he says.
Another key question that needs to be answered, says Gold, is what will enterprises do about corporate apps – will they cloud/SaaS or not? And how quickly?
Gold says he expects many companies to deploy cloud based apps also believes that the transition to the cloud will be slower than most experts expect.
“We expect it will be at least three to four years before most companies transition a significant portion of their mission-critical apps to the cloud and SaaS. So for SaaS apps like Salesforce.com, Android will be a very attractive candidate, as will the iPhone as it requires very little corporate effort to deploy. But for the traditional thick purpose-built applications, we expect BlackBerry to maintain its significant installed base in the organization through its ISV community and its superior manageability and security services,” he posited.
So will Android and iPhone be able to topple Blackberry and – in some markets- Nokia’s enterprise dominance, becoming the work phones of choice? It’s still very unclear, but Gold says despite Android and iPhone’s growing popularity with enterprise users he does not expect most companies to quickly change their mobile deployment strategies for mission critical applications.
“For casual users or those apps that can be cloud-based or SaaS, iPhone and Android will be attractive. For most thick apps, we expect to see a continuance of BlackBerry popularity, with some inroads made by iPhones,” he concluded.
If you need us, we’ll be tweeting down by the water cooler.
