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British Bank Offers Employees Option of Switching From BlackBerry to iPhone

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Apr 12, 2001
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Reuters reports that British bank Standard Chartered is offering more communication options to its global team of bankers, moving away from BlackBerry as the sole smartphone approved for use by the company to allow bankers to adopt the iPhone as their platform for mobile business tasks.
Standard Chartered bankers in Asia told Reuters that the London-based lender was giving its corporate Blackberry users the option of switching to the iPhone, with the company agreeing to continue to pay monthly billing for business-related telephone and data services.

"It's a group-wide initiative involving wholesale and consumer banks globally," said a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Standard Chartered, told Reuters.
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With 75,000 employees worldwide, Standard Chartered's acceptance of the iPhone may mark the beginning of a shift away from exclusive use of Research in Motion's BlackBerry smartphones in the banking industry.

The report notes that security and other technical issues make it somewhat difficult for companies to pursue the necessary testing and implementation to make such a switch, but that Standard Chartered is a significant entity to come down on the side of allowing iPhones onto its business networks.

Article Link: British Bank Offers Employees Option of Switching From BlackBerry to iPhone
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/17/british-bank-offers-employees-option-of-switching-from-blackberry-to-iphone/
not sure why they would do this (that's what is the business reason)... seems like BB is well suited for the business market (security, configurable, etc)

P.
 
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
 
Muffles

obsoletepower said:
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
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Are we sure these iPhone users aren't calling from abroad or even where the cell tower needs maintenance. The only time I've had a complaint was when I called China. Had my mate call me back and he sounded a bit like Darth.
 
obsoletepower said:
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
Click to expand...

You seem to be quite distressed. Perhaps you should take a deep breath, and count backwards from 10 to 1.
 
obsoletepower said:
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
Click to expand...

probably wasn't using a real iPhone and just using one of those cheap china knock offs.
 
The company I work for already issues iPhones to it's employees. About 12 months ago, they switched all phones from Blackberries to iPhones. I'm not going to say who I work for, but the total company has 9,000 employees. Now obviously, less than half of those employees have a company-issued cell phone, but for all of the people that do, they are issued iPhones.
 
I can safely say that in many parts of asia, iphones don't drop connections like they do in New York.

Not sure about the security issues that have been mentioned but I've a relative in Standard Chartered. The bank has created a new app for consumer banking on Iphones and from a marketing point of view, it makes more sense to go the way of the iphone in terms of consumer banking (more bling, more hype etc.. pls don't flame me here..)

On another front, they are very much pro- Apple. They have substantial staff discounts on Macs and seem to be giving away Iphones FOC to certain staff (maybe to clear stock in anticipation of iphone 4G?).
 
OMG! A bank gives its employees iPhones. This news should be sticky on the front page until some bigger news shows up, maybe WWDC?

I wish I worked there. NOT!

/thread
 
paul4339 said:
not sure why they would do this (that's what is the business reason)... seems like BB is well suited for the business market (security, configurable, etc)P.
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if it's the same over there as it is at our bank, then there is no "business reason"
it comes down to the fact that most of the senior business people (i.e. traders who earn the big bucks and will buy any new shiny fad object that is the current trend) all have got themselves iPhones. and so have half the IT management.
so there was no business reason, it was purely a management statement "I want to get my email on my iPhone, not carry around an additional blackberry as well"

the security isn't so much of an issue if you force all your users to get their email via the Good for Enterprise application. cheaper than getting a full blown apple server to manage/configure your iPhone network and you can remotely kill the email accounts if the phone gets lost and becomes a risk.
 
obsoletepower said:
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
Click to expand...

I got two things from this posting; one your in the wrong forum if that is your opinion, and two; you need to touch-"base" with a f^@*ing dictionary and look up the difference between base/bass...
 
I have A BB for work, and a 3GS for personal, not the latest BB though, It has better Battery life (no 3g or wireless), but it is an inferior phone contrary to what others have said here.
For textual email the BB is better, the keyboard is easier to use. They way i use my business mobile now its a dead heat.

The thing is, for web or app based services delivered through 3G and wireless the (my) BB isn't on the same page as the iphone. it is much better thought out (the iphone), the whole operating paradigm is better.

So this is significant, the BB and iphone say different things (BB, serious in demand operator) no one would have a BB just for text and phoning your Mum a bog std Nokia is way better. What does an iphone say, fashion victim?, Fanboi! (as some would have it), So that a UK bank has swapped the former for the later is thoroughly reportable, not all employee's would be happy do to image issues and the lack of a keyboard.
 
grapefruitx said:
...What does an iphone say, fashion victim?, Fanboi! (as some would have it....
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If the popularity were simply due to "fashion" or "fanbois" (what an idiotic word), the iPhone would not have made the impact that it has. Other phone makers have been forced to address the shortcomings of their smartphones because of the iPhone. They would not have cared, otherwise. They had to compete, in part to address the some of the shortcomings of the iPhone.

Blackberry was the only game in town for the longest time, and yes, they have done a good job in the Enterprise market. They just didn't push the envelope of their devices past their initial core...secure enterprise messaging.
 
Kilamite said:
Never heard of this bank..
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Calling them British is technically correct but I don't believe they have many/any branches over here. They are very big in Asia however.

According to this weeks Economist they are worth US$54 billion and are the worlds 25th biggest bank.
 
Scb

Eraserhead said:
Calling them British is technically correct but I don't believe they have many/any branches over here. They are very big in Asia however.

According to this weeks Economist they are worth US$54 billion and are the worlds 25th biggest bank.
Click to expand...

- They operate in 70 countries (including the US) through 1700 branches but are not really a retail bank outside Asia.
- Oh they bought American Express Bank from American Express
- Probably their biggest competitor (in asia) is another UK bank called HSBC
- They sponsor a series of marathons around the world as well as some small soccer club called Liverpool...
 
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