iPhone 2.0 - ready for business?

NEWS

With Apple CEO Steve Jobs set to unveil the hotly anticipated iPhone 2.0 on Monday, rumoured tweaks include 3G, GPS capability and variations on its sleek touchscreen form factor.

Yesterday we looked at the predicted new features of the new iPhone in depth in part one of this article but today we examine whether this will be enough for Apple to break into the enterprise smart phone market dominated by the likes of RIM.

One of the big enterprise-friendly tweaks for the iPhone are the firmware updates Apple announced back in March when it said it would be licensing Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol.

This will bring corporate-friendly features including push email, push calendar, push contacts, security policy tools, two-factor authentication, remote data wipe and Cisco IP-sec VPN access to the phone.

And these updates are more crucial to business users than the addition of 3G, according to Gartner analyst Jason Chapman.

He told silicon.com: "If we look at the sorts of apps that business users want from their phone wireless email is right up there at the top of the list, and BlackBerry - RIM - has been doing a fantastic job without 3G for a number of years. With the iPhone the security issues [via the firmware update] that are being addressed now were probably more of an issue than the 3G."

Chapman adds: "I'm sure they'd rather have 3G than not have it but it's not the killer app. That integration with corporate email is going to make it more accessible to the enterprise."

Even with these firmware updates, analysts do not see Apple ousting RIM as number one smart phone for the enterprise - though there is a widely held belief the iPhone will gain ground, especially as senior executives, and other users who can choose their enterprise device, push iPhones into the business (the so-called 'consumerisation' trend).

But Apple's phone may also find a home in verticals such as publishing and marketing, which already have a high degree of Mac users.

Canalys analyst Peter Cunningham says: "I don't expect to see the iPhones displacing RIM in, if you like, BlackBerry heartland. However…I do expect there are certain enterprises that would like to deploy iPhones."

Apple's decision earlier this year to launch an SDK (software development kit) is another key tool in iPhone's enterprise arsenal going forward.

Gartner's Chapman says: "For enterprises looking at mobilising applications, opening up of the iPhone's - the SDK - does allow the enterprise to look at doing more with the iPhone."

He adds: "Bottom line is the iPhone is going to be one of the products that people are going to want to use [in business] and therefore you've got to look at how you can get applications on there. And that's going to be one of the things that Apple with the enterprise market is going to have to work on."

Mark Heath, Analysys Mason associate, agrees with this view: "The key thing - which we've got to wait and see - is how the applications are developed. And how well…the SDK is provided - how well third parties actually get on with that and start to produce apps."

So, in the short term at least, it looks like iPhone 2.0 is going to be making the most noticeable waves in the consumer sphere. But - paradoxically - that might just make it all the more likely to end up being big in the enterprise.

As Chapman notes: "Apple would say [the iPhone is] designed for everyone. But if you look at it realistically it's a fantastic iPod that really has consumer written all over it but is being brought into the enterprise by consumers..."