Everyone's interest is up about the new Apple 3G iPhone coming next week. I'm sure Steve Jobs will do his pitchman shtick as well as he ever has. I expect to see Steve roll out some cool iPhone app a 3rd party developed with the iPhone SDK along with touting new features and styling of the 3G iPhone. But no amount of shtick can cover over the fact that the iPhone popularity still pales in comparison to the Blackberry for business users.
A ChangeWave Research report shows the percentage of companies planning to buy Blackberry devices rising from from 61% to 82% over the last five months. (During the build up to the iPhone 3G announcement, btw.) Plans to buy Apple iPhones have only risen from 10% to 13% over the last three months. The real loser in all this is Palm, dropping from 22% to 8% over that same five month period. The media loves to talk up the Apple iPhone but that isn't translating to an overwhelming business user market share gain by Apple.
The iPhone still lacks key business user features that Blackberry perfected years ago. iPhone users now have Microsoft Exchange integration but many report its not as seamless and easy as on the Blackberry. Users still complain about the iPhone's funky keyboard, whereas Blackberrys have very easy to use keyboards many can blaze through with thumbs and fingers. The iPhone also doesn't do well searching and managing hundreds of contacts, something most business users rely on greatly. Blackberry also has very intuitive "think ahead" features and menus that anticipate the most common actions while placing calls, managing contacts or calendar appointments. Blackberry's greatest deficiencies are its web browser and lack of HTML email support.
The iPhone has a fantastic Safari web browser, better than anything I've seen on a mobile phone or PDA. Hands down, the iPhone is a better web experience so long as you don't have to slog through AT&T's slow EDGE network. Thus, all the anticipation around the 3G iPhone.The iPhone's screen is also superb, the touch & gestures interface rocks (expect the keyboard), and brings a lot of flash (except Adobe Flash) and sizzle to the PDA experience.
That's why I say Blackberry is the Ferrari and the iPhone's a DeLorean. I was around when the DeLorean first came out. It was a very, very cool sports car with its wing style doors and brush polished silver exterior. A friend of my dad's had one and we got to drive it around. Very cool experience. But in the end, the DeLorean didn't stick around, except in Michael J. Fox movies. It had a lot of flash, but the Ferrari was about engineering perfection, something Ferrari worked at year after year. Nobody expected the DeLorean to go away, but it just turned out that way.
Now, I'm not saying the iPhone will go the way of the DeLorean or the doh-doh bird. What I'm saying is Apple brings a lot of new capabilities and some hot sizzle to the PDA phone market. But, it's not the perfected device the Blackberry is. I've blogged before about Apple's ability to innovate and create markets, but it's utter failure at dominating markets (iPod being the one exception). I expect the same of the iPhone. The iPhone is a consumer device. Blackberrys are for business users. There will be crossover but Apple has some serious ground to make up if they want to chip away at Blackberrys dominance. That is not something Apple has shown they can do successfully.
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Mitchell Ashley is CEO and Chief Strategist of Converging Network, LLC, providing product and technology strategies to emerging technology companies. A serial entrepreneur, Mitchell has created many successful products and services in the networking, security, convergence, Internet and IT industries. In addition to blogging for NetworkWorld, Mitchell regularly blogs at TheConvergingNetwork and co-hosts the widely popular Still Crazy After All These Years podcast.
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What nonsense
Everything about this story is silly. It's not even funny. Blackberry is just a phone with email. Perfect for 2007. History in 2010. Neither is a toy for occasional play for the very rich.
Fantasyland
They have a place for you in Disneyland. It's where you have no concept of reality. Lets see now, iPhone is almost 1 year old. 2nd edition. Blackberry is ???? Version of Blackberry did what and didnt do a heck of a lot more. Well be prepared to see iphone on Monday and eat crow. And get back to reality. The best is yet to come and Apple will keep innovating.
disney
Actually, Disney is one of the beta testers for the iphone OS / enterprise integration. So, i don't think he belongs there...
Agree - Real, but get real
While the CrackBerry is top of the heap now, I work in corporate BBerry central, and to compare the device to a Ferrari is truly laughable. As the iPhone is a new device, I say give it time. Having used it, it is clearly a new way to manage (well, everything) without the repetitive stress injury to the thumbs.
Let's not forget...
John DeLorean, the man behind the time-traveling sports car, was indicted for drug trafficking. While I don't know what the case's outcome was--I seem to recall that he got off on the charges because of entrapment laws--it seems to me that he pretty much dropped off the plane after that.
It seems entirely possible to me that some of the big names in the luxury-auto-motor-sport world might have engineered the whole process, not necessarily to get him jailed, but to distract him from competing with them....
Anyway, the CEO of RIM is not going to get a reprieve by Jobs being sucked into some sort of cocaine dealing nightmare. The iPhone is new, but doing very well out of the starting gate. Blackberry created the market--well really, Palm did--but there's no reason to think that the iPhone won't continue to grow.
And for that matter, it's always possible that something none of us has even imagined is working its way through development labs at X corp right now...
It's not 1981, Your Phone Can Do More Than 2 Things ...
First, guy, your showing your old school IT age - the DeLorean, why not say Model T? You pretty much typify why IT is seen as the DMV of technology. You cling to old technology. RIM after 6 months, 1 phone and 1 CARRIER essentially gave up 30% of the market to Apple - now that Apple has 65 more countries and 70 carriers ... AND presumably several new phones on Monday, RIM has been coasting for a long time - think about it - after all this hype, RIM has less than 13-million customers - out of what? 3 billion cell phone users and 10+ years in the market? RIM is a niche player - it's a nice market but it's 'firewall' type of company - a solid market for people who want corporate email and can only type on a tiny keyboard - refusing any other choice - it's no wonder RIM is #1 with the government types so don't confuse being a big player in a small market. It took Apple 6 months to sell 6 million phones - slightly less than half of RIM's TOTAL customer base. Like Creative & Rio when the iPod came out, RIm is about to be run over.
If you want a car analogy, RIM is a UPS truck, nice useful but a niche truck ... Apple is a semi that is designed so containers can be dropped right on it.
Apple vs Blackberry
Many forget that the iphone is less than a year old. During that time, it has generated so much fear and competitive responses from its peer that it is not funny anymore. Apple has not even tried to attack the enterprise market yet, so how can it be considered to have "failed"? Once the iphone has enterprise push email, emabrked on a distribution model for enterprises etc., then should one consider it embarking on such an effort and then let the judgement proceed some time after.
Delorean gone away? Ferrari engineering perfection?
You clearly know NOTHING about cars! Deloreans are still here, and you can buy a BRAND NEW hand-built one right now. As for Ferrari? Just do a little research on that.
OMG
This story sucks so much it hurts my brain. Yes, I'm so terrified at prospects of iPhone's demise that I am going to sell all my Apple stock today. Well done, genius.
Good article
Yup, fanboys like Jack and Sleepy fail to realise that for corporate solutions a great browser is somewhere near the foot of the desirable features list.
Little things like price, carrier partnership, business functionality and robustness tend to come near the top.
Apple: a dotcomesque bubble in waiting.