HSBC may drop Blackberry to opt for iPhone, would only need 200,000
By Justin Montgomery
The banking giant is going over the idea of possibly dropping its Blackberrys to switch over to iPhones for its employees. If they make the move, it could result in a order larger than 200,000 units for Apple, the largest single order to date.
HSBC has a massive workforce, and the move would be major blow to RIM. The leading banking company has a $6 billion annual technology budget and a technology team of 30,000 supporting 300,000 employees. At first, the lack of Exchange support swayed its decision to ditch RIM, but with the new 3G devices, HSBC will likely make the switch, according to ZDNet Australia.
Many have stated that since the iPhone is so new to enterprise, it would at least be a few years for it ease its way into employee hands. Steven Bandrowczak, global CIO of Nortel, which has 30,000 staff members, said he doubted whether his staff would choose the iPhone over its current device, the BlackBerry, due to the latter device’s superior email functionality.
HSBC’s Australia and New Zealand chief information officer Brenton Hush has a different point of view. When asked whether the Blackberry still provides superior functionality from an enterprise standpoint, he added; "No, I don’t. I think the iPhone would change some underlying infrastructure considerations from an enterprise perspective. But Apple has been pretty smart with the design." On when the decision might be made, he stated; "A decision on a piece of hardware like that would potentially be deployed, conservatively, to 200,000 people," said Hush. "You know, it’s a big decision, especially when you have an existing fleet out there."
I’ve been waiting for a large company like this to make the leap and show the rest of the corporate world that it can be done. We all need to see how it works overall in a huge organization with hundreds of thousands of devices being managed. The only things holding it back are battery life, and the 3G connection issues some have been experiencing, but overall I think it’s poised to trounce Blackberry in the end. I guess we’ll have to wait and see who dives in first, whether it’s HSBC or not.
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