Apple shows off iPhone's use in the enterprise world
If you need more convincing before ditching your BlackBerry, Apple just posted a new page on its website that highlights the iPhone's use in the enterprise market. The info-packed page shows how the iPhone is used in the business setting …
Context & Ripple Effects
This page is the marketing end of an arc Apple has been building since Gartner told enterprises to expect a corporate iPhone back in 2007. By 2010, an AT&T executive was already saying four out of ten iPhone sales went to enterprise buyers, so today's move is less about proving demand than about legitimizing it for IT departments still defaulting to BlackBerry.
The framing matters: rather than a product announcement, Apple is publishing a dedicated business-use page — case studies of the iPhone in workplace settings — pitched squarely at the procurement audience David Pogue addressed back in 2008 when he introduced readers' BlackBerrys to the iPhone. Eight syndicated outlets picked the story up within a day, from The Verge to Phone Arena, indicating how closely watchers treat any sign of Apple formalizing its corporate ambitions.
First-order effects
- Apple now has a sales artifact aimed at CIOs and IT buyers who need justification beyond employee preference, giving its channel partners something concrete to hand corporate customers evaluating device refreshes.
- RIM's core differentiator — enterprise credibility — is being attacked with marketing rather than features, pressuring BlackBerry to defend accounts where switching conversations have already started.
Second-order effects
- Mobile device management and security vendors gain leverage either way: enterprises hedging between iPhone and BlackBerry deployments will pay for tooling that makes consumer devices policy-compliant.
- Carriers and resellers can reprice enterprise contracts around mixed fleets instead of single-vendor BlackBerry estates, shifting negotiating power toward whoever controls the management layer.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — consumer preference pulling devices into the office, vendors then legitimizing it with enterprise programs — corporate mobility moves from top-down standardization to employee-led selection, with BlackBerry's installed base as the pool being converted.
The trend: Consumer smartphones are migrating into the corporate mainstream, forcing the shift from carrier-and-IT-dictated device standards to employee-driven selection backed by vendor enterprise programs.