How will it play out?
Monday’s launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G device, coupled with the introduction of push email through its MobileMe cloud computing service, increases the threat to Windows Mobile and could put Blackberry’s hefty enterprise market share under pressure. But Apple will find that the enterprise smart phone market is a tougher nut to crack than the consumer one.
RIM’s Blackberry
To borrow the National Rifle Association slogan, most users will only give up their Blackberries when they are prised from their cold, dead hand and there are a lot of them. Although Apple has made the iPhone much more enterprise-friendly, it has a steep hill to climb before companies will be tempted to write off their investment in RIM.
Users believe the Blackberry already offers superior enterprise functionality to the iPhone 3G and there is a massive install base. RIM continues to innovate and has the 3G Bold 9000 Blackberry (pictured) on the slips, and the touch-screen Thunder 9500 and another, clamshell device under development.
With support for MS Exchange, for encrypted access to
corporate networks and the ability to wipe out user data from stolen iPhones,
Apple has made a bold bid to win over enterprise users who get withdrawal
symptoms when parted from their crackberries. The GPS capability is also a huge
plus.
The fact that iPhone 2.0 has the same kernel as Apple’s OS X may mean fewer problems, but Apple will still have to match RIM’s strong tech support organisation to reassure major enterprise clients, who look for dependability and manageability above all.
Windows Mobile
Microsoft (MS) has been trying for ages to become the dominant smart phone operating system, so Apple’s sudden appearance must be at least a severe inconvenience. Of further irritation must be how the slick usability of the iPhone software contrasts with the sometime exasperating clunkiness on Windows Mobile.
The slick usability of the iPhone software contrasts with the sometime exasperating clunkiness on Windows Mobile.MS is so dominant that almost any innovation challenges some part of the empire. The novelty here is that Apple has whole-heartedly embraced third party developers, precisely the tactic that won the OS war for MS back in the day.
Another notable advantage Apple brings to this contest is its well-established iTunes distribution platform for App Store, whose generous terms and conditions for developers should rapidly overcome Apple’s perennial problem of a limited applications base. Added to which, iPhone 2.0 offers the most user-adaptable interface in the business.
The others
Pricing iPhone 3G at a maximum of £99 puts even Palm’s budget smartphone Centro in the cross-hairs. The new device is now genuinely price competitive as long as you want to use it for 18 months, don’t want to be able to choose your operator and don’t have very long conversations.
Whatever answers Palm, Nokia, Samsung and HTC produce, whether using Windows Mobile or Symbian software, the happy days of selling poor man’s iPhones are over and profit margins are going to be squeezed. Affordable as well as ultra-cool sets a consumer industry standard that will be hard to beat.
The happy days of selling poor man’s iPhones are over and profit margins are going to be squeezed.To a degree, the iPhone created the mass market for smartphones. As the fashion accessory of choice, the reduced price should make it a “must have” for a broader market of students and more casual users. As we reported previously, Apple’s Rolls-Royce pricing strategy simply opened the door to increased sales by its competitors. That will not happen again.
Summary
Blackberry was built as an enterprise product and the iPhone was built for consumers. It remains to be seen whether RIM or Apple enjoys the greater success as each tries to expand into the other’s market. Apple has cool, hype and momentum on its side while RIM has a massive install base and a track record for reliability.
As for Windows Mobile – it is neither cool nor especially user friendly so Windows better have something pretty special up its sleeve for version 7, which apparently isn’t even road-mapped yet and can’t reasonably be expected before 2010.
Realistically, Apple can’t expect to unseat RIM anytime soon, but it’s not inconceivable that it could take second place in the enterprise smartphone market. Whatever happens, the advent of the iPhone 3G will galvanise an already vibrant market, which has to be good news for consumers and enterprises alike.
