Business "impression". Your opinion?

[TuffLuffJimmy]

i wouldnt call the iPhone a cool toy...

It certainly is marketed as such. What would you call it?

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

There's a lot more available than you might think, although it's not as widely known.

We've been running a pilot at work on corporate iPhone use and our CIO has one, although we haven't deployed it widely.

http://images.apple.com/iphone/business/docs/iPhone_Security_Overview.pdf

I'm sure there are lots of possibilities for BES-style policy management with the iPhone, but the thing is, Apple didn't design the devices with that kind of paradigm in mind. Had they done so, you'd have seen Exchange support since the 2G.

I'm really not in favor of one versus the other, and have in fact carried both at some points in my life (particularly if my client requires me to do so). But there's a reason the RIM devices lacked a camera for so long and a lot of that has to do with specific design criteria aimed at large, big-box corporate security policies.

The iPhone was built around a consumer, iTunes-centric model. Sure it can be made to do a lot more and eventually it likely WILL be possible to create (or exceed) BES-levels of corporate management solutions for the device.

But honestly, I expect this to come from a third party first. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that either Microsoft or RIM themselves get into "policy mangement" for iPhones to support mixed-device environments. Long, long before Apple does it themselves. Its just not their priority.

 

[rwilliams]

The iPhone was built around a consumer, iTunes-centric model. Sure it can be made to do a lot more and eventually it likely WILL be possible to create (or exceed) BES-levels of corporate management solutions for the device.

But honestly, I expect this to come from a third party first. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that either Microsoft or RIM themselves get into "policy mangement" for iPhones to support mixed-device environments. Long, long before Apple does it themselves. Its just not their priority.

I completely agree. I've long felt that it would be a third-party that ends up releasing enterprise-level software that would lock down the iPhone. If Apple was serious about the iPhone being a business phone that rivaled Blackberry, they would have done something by the fourth revision of the iPhone.