For the iPhone, the enterprise beckons
Over the last few weeks, a number of smartphone market reports have been published and, although each covers a distinct topic, all tell the same story: Apple’s iPhone and AppStore one-two-punch rules the smartphone market.
The first big clue that Apple’s doing things right was the news that the iPhone outsold RIM’s Blackberry last quarter and not by just a little — 6.9 million to 6.1 million, respectively.
That’s truly an impressive statistic. Yet, the details behind the numbers paint an even rosier picture for Apple, which has been in the smart phone market for just over five quarters and offered enterprise-critical Exchange support for less than two quarters.
Some of that color is available from Reuters, which has analyst insights on the iPhone’s growing success in the enterprise.
“I see very few companies turning off BlackBerries,” said Jack Gold, founder, J Gold Associates. “I see more companies turning on support for the iPhone.”
Gold estimates that 15 to 20 percent of iPhone users, independent of their company’s IT departments, are buying an Apple handset for use at work. Further, many of these users are succeeding in getting IT managers to support their choice.
Yes, you can haz cheezburger
That said, a JD Power & Associates survey points to one of the factors driving adoption in the enterprise, one handset at a time, is users’ satisfaction with the iPhone.
In the company’s 2008 Business Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study, based on responses from 1,388 business wireless customers, Apple’s sophomore handset (778 of 1,000) topped both the Blackberry (703) and Samsung (701) in overall customer satisfaction.
“With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Apple has clearly differentiated itself from the competition in areas that are most important to business smartphone users,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director, wireless services, JD Power. “By making basic applications and features easy to use and providing functionality in a thin, lightweight device, Apple has performed well in exceeding customer expectations.”
But, according to a SquareTrade (.pdf) study, that’s only part of the picture.
The company analyzed phone failure rates for more than 15,000 new handsets phones covered by SquareTrade Care Plans, and found the iPhone had fewer than half the failures of BlackBerry and one-third that of Palm’s Treo in the first year.
It’s this combination of revolutionary interface, applications, customer satisfaction and product reliability that provides a fuller picture of why sales have been fabulous, but also why individual users are driving iPhone adoption in the enterprise.
In just over a year’s time, Apple’s easily bested RIM, Samsung and Palm. Yet, in these early days, I’m wondering whether the smartphone market will quickly come to resemble Apple’s dominance in digital music (iPod and iTunes)?
Does the competition even stand a chance against the iPhone and AppStore? Right now, their chances are perhaps looking a little slim…
What’s your take?
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November 12th, 2008
My take is there was nothing “new” from RIM in the quarter. Selling year+ old designs against the latest “must have” gadget is pretty difficult, I’m actually surprised the iPhone vs. Blackberry dominance wasn’t greater than it was. I suspect with 4 key new devices out now or soon (Bold, Storm, Pearl Flip, “new” Curve) RIM will once again start moving a lot of units. Pulse the gadget sites, and especially with the Blackberry Storm launching in USA/Canada/UK this month there is a LOT of buzz that bodes well for Blackberry sales.
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