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Ford Transitioning From BlackBerries to iPhones for Employees
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Yesterday's BBs are not today's BBs, and people don't know.
I never had a BlackBerry before, the new OS lured me.
Really? I have one for work and see them all the time when I travel for business. Still a lot of people out there who have a company issued BB and a personal phone for everything else.
Our company, (a large one like Ford) is also looking at getting rid of BB as well. But my questions if they want to try to provide devices or encourage more support of BYOD and utilize secured apps for company business.
If the company provides iPhones that have restrictions like the BB, it'll just lead to people carrying two devices again.
There are two competing interests here. Apple is interested in getting in Enterprise to sell more units. I'd bet a high percentage of Blackberry corporate users have personal iPhones. So if those company issued iPhones replace the personal iPhones users had bought, is there really a big net market out there for Apple? Or is Apple just interested in replacing BB as the 'company owned device' for those two devices users.
The cynical part of me would bet the latter....since you can ALWAYS count on Apple to get the $$$.
The parallels that can be drawn between early Ford and Apple are incredible. I highly recommend any apple fan watch this video:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2329934360/
http://video.pbs.org/video/2329934360/
They obviously think it's better to have a 4" phone screen and iOS than a large screen running Android.
Quite a lot of people would agree, too.
When it's a company paid device, you get what you get or buy it yourself.
The company's goal is security and functionality to get the job done. Not whether the employee has the largest screen available on the market...
you really missed the joke?
it's a modern take on an old saying by Henry Ford after he "invented" the production line for automobile creation.
Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.
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They're like the Monty python skit from "The holy Grail"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
"I'm feeling betta!"
but yeah. They're still working and functioning and actually had their first profit in a long time last quarter. They moved production of their devices to FoxConn to be able to make cheaper devices for the 3rd world. the Z30 was actually quite succesfull and they're seeing a lot of support still in business with services and the Q devices. The "Blackberry Classic" is has gotten some following too.
The new CEO seems to be a little better and smarter than Thor the bullhead puppet.
Awesome first post!
FYI, the first model year of the Model T actually had several colors offered. However, Henry Ford himself found that the selection of color was slowing down sales (yes, this happened to the 5C line) so only one color was offered. Hence why the first generations of iPhone's were only one color.
The second model year, they were all black (cheapest color that Ford could get) to sell cars faster. Then, massive aftermarket for car painting was created. One of the guys that capitalized on this was Earl Scheib.
I know. Look at my signature. And actually I'm using a Z10 now and should update my signature. Blackberries handle attachments and multiple email accounts for me better than my iPhone 5. Also virtual keyboard is slightly better on Z10 and I can touch type on the Q10. Also picture lock is faster to unlock phone then complex password on iPhone 5. So I use my Blackberry more than my iPhone for messaging. But Apps run faster and slightly better on iPhone. So if I need an App more complicated than Twitter, I reach for the iPhone. But if I'm doing messaging or browsing web, I use the Blackberry.
Anyway, yes, I've got the Amazon App store downloaded on my Blackberry and it gives me easy access to lots of Android Apps. But the experience still isn't as good as on my iPhone 5.
Only not cool for those who do not understand all the reasons oversized phones are bad.
There are no reasons that oversized or any sized phones are good or bad. Only opinions.
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Unfortunately, another parallel isn't quite as positive.
The whole Apple-Samsung patent war reminds me of a book I just finished, "Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies" by Lawrence Goldstone. Its about the early days of flight and the battle between the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtis, another legendary early plane manufacturer. Substitute Wrights and Curtiss with Apple and Samsung.
Basically, after developing the Wright Flyer in 1903, the super-secretive Wright Brothers spent so much time in pursuit of monopoly, with overreaching patents that pretty much wanted the whole idea of flying to be theirs, that they stopped innovating altogether, and spent all their time from 1908 onwards in court, obsessed about their patents. That allowed Curtiss, and others, to truly innovate with new technologies and pull ahead of them. The Wrights won the court battles, but they rode their initial successes too long, and others surpassed them.
Sound familiar? If Apple isn't careful, history will being repeated.
Two tech guys I'm working with now have iPhone and Android phones and want the Blackberrys back.
Not nearly as bad as people make it seem to be. iPhone 4 on iOS 7 is my daily driver and I live just fine using it. No doubt it's not the quickest thing in the world but for the most part just the doing the "basic" things it still works just fine.
It is interesting which companies get press for this and which ones don't. I work for a fortune 5 company, we transitioned to iPhones last year. I'm not sure how many employees actually have company phones, but overall there are 14,000 employees world wide.