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Why IT Hates the iPhone
Why IT Hates the iPhone
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WSJ article- Why IT Hates the iPhone
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Apple is not traditionally a business oriented supplier.
Companies need to be able to rely on longterm support, without secrecy. Apple is especially poor about the latter.
And Apple's idea of hosting private apps on their server simply will NOT fly for most corporations. Apple will definitely need to change that concept.
Companies need to be able to rely on longterm support, without secrecy. Apple is especially poor about the latter.
And Apple's idea of hosting private apps on their server simply will NOT fly for most corporations. Apple will definitely need to change that concept.
My favorite: "It's clear to us that power is shifting to the users" and away from IT departments..." 
Is the writer a Wall Street Journal staff reporter or a member of Apple's marketing team? Talk about free publicity!
Why the hell would they care? As long as Apple guarantees the security of the apps I can't see the issue.
This is because if Apple guarantees the security, then they can be sued for negligence if its broken.
The question there, is does Apple allow some external company access to internal applications(because that is what Apple would be to say the US Government)? If it isn't such a big deal then you would think Apple would walk the walk.
Apple already announced that they were working on a solution for companies to distribute proprietary software through a sort of branded web store (at least as I understood it). It was covered either in the Q&A immediately following the iPhone SDK press conference or something similar. They weren't big on specifics, but really, are they ever?
Major companies don't like for anything they own or created to exist outside their own intranet. Doesn't matter who the babysitter is, there's always the chance of a security breach.
That's just the way it is. No arguments are possible.
Doesn't matter even if Apple were to "take responsibility". They're not the heads that would roll. Instead it'd be the poor fool(s) who in the other company who allowed it.
Doesn't apply to all companies of course. But I work for several huge ones where it would.
That's just the way it is. No arguments are possible.
Doesn't matter even if Apple were to "take responsibility". They're not the heads that would roll. Instead it'd be the poor fool(s) who in the other company who allowed it.
Doesn't apply to all companies of course. But I work for several huge ones where it would.
My favorite: "It's clear to us that power is shifting to the users" and away from IT departments..."
Yes, I read that to coworkers in a conf call and we all fell on the floor laughing.
IT is the tail that wags the dog these days.
We can't even get WinMo phones in some places, much less iPhones, simply because all that many IT's will support is Blackberry.
What is your definition of business? Photographers are not running a business? Designers are not running a business? Fashion is not business? PR agency is not a business? Hospitals are not a business?
It's just FUD. MS centric people who don't know anything better.
You do know that there will be full exchange support on the iPhone within a few months? What will be their excuse now?
In my case, the definition is: places that write their own handheld apps. I thought that was clear when I mentioned companies hosting apps at Apple.
That doesn't apply to most of what you talked about, where it's simply people using iPhones for email or web access.
Such corp's need inside information, access to Apple engineers, the ability to ask for and get changes, and the assurance that product won't be left without support ten years from now.
It's just the way it is. The same goes for choosing servers for mass deployments. Large UNIX servers are often chosen over MS and LINUX boxes. As the saying goes, no one ever got fired for buying IBM.
For custom apps, that doesn't matter a lot. Some, but not a lot. Again, we're obviously talking about totally different kinds of uses.
I totally relate; our IT folks could care less what the "users" think or are using outside of their "kingdom!" LOL
Sometimes I do wonder if all 700 hubs with 50,000,000 flashing lights are just in that room to make us think there's a huge operation going on. I got totally confused on many things in networking classes, but there has to be a better way to do things that the mess that is a lot of IT stuff today. I would also love to know why corporate e-mail and printing works so much less often than the crap each of us use at home all the time.
I totally relate; our IT folks could care less what the "users" think or are using outside of their "kingdom!" LOL
You really shouldn't complain until after you do their job.... it costs them actual money in terms of their departmental budget to implement IT services for you. They rarely (in most every place I've ever been) get thanked for keeping things running smoothly (most of the time), but they quickly get demonized whenever there's a problem. And you can say, "OMG LOL I'll jus git my stuff frum teh Limewirz!!!! ROFL" but they actually have to comply with the law while they're doing all that.
I do like my iPhone. In general, overall, it's a more fun experience than my Blackberry, and RIM needs to learn fun from Apple. But Apple needs to learn robustness from RIM.
Here are my top few examples:
- Apple has good encryption technology. The standard of practice at this point is that mobile devices with sensitive data on them be encrypted. Why can't you encrypt the e-mail on an iPhone?
- I took my iPhone with me to the camp I volunteer at this weekend. The reception there is intermittent at best, but it's good to be able to periodically see e-mails in case of work emergencies (not to mention friend emergencies). My Blackberry, in this kind of situation, would sneak through an e-mail or two every time it got just a moment of service, and if I checked it periodically, I'd see all my e-mails with reasonable timeliness. My iPhone not only failed to get any e-mail all weekend, when I got back into service after having let it try and fail to connect all weekend, it still refused to make a connection, and I had to reset it to get it to get e-mails again.
- The iPhone can be password protected (e.g. the four digit PIN lock), but as far as I can tell, a computer does not need its password to be able to access it -- I never had to provide my iMac that password, as far as I remember. That's ridiculous.
These are relatively simple things to implement... and more to the point, they're consistent with the level of business sensibility that Apple uses on their desktops and notebooks. Just writing off corporate IT concerns is really shortsighted. It doesn't make sense for Apple to ignore the most lucrative segments of the cell phone market.
Attach your iPhone to someone elses system and I think you'll find that without your PIN, their only option in iTunes is to restore the iPhone back to factory settings.
Speaking of robustness, it's amazing how many times that users on the Apple support forums are told to restore their phones.
I don't recall having to reload the entire operating system (plus all my personal stuff) on any other phones in order to fix memory leaks, misfiled "Other" files, misbehaving touchscreen drivers, etc.
Definitely not a set it and forget it phone for my wife yet.
I don't recall having to reload the entire operating system (plus all my personal stuff) on any other phones in order to fix memory leaks, misfiled "Other" files, misbehaving touchscreen drivers, etc.
Definitely not a set it and forget it phone for my wife yet.
Oh, is this the case? I don't have two computers that run iTunes to test with.
That's probably fine by me, then. I actually did have to do this once with my Blackberry ... it might have been my fault -- I don't recall. I might have OTA installed some app that didn't get along with it. I agree, though, this just should not have to happen. The worst thing is that, outside of the iPhone, pretty much no smartphone has software to do this that runs on Macs. So reflashing my Blackberry was a royal pain in the ass!
Dude what are you talking about?
We all know you hate the iPhone. Congratulations you are an awesome drone. Keep up the good work.
I have had my iPhone since day 1 and have never had to reset let alone reload the software on it.
Just what I said. Spend any amount of time on the Apple support forums, and you'll daily see a dozen people told to try a Recover on their phones, for all sorts of common reasons:
The dead touchscreen strip. The bogus 1GB+ of Other. Stuck apps, mail. Errors trying to install updates. You name it. If you're not aware of these things, you should stay out of conversations about robustness.
Really, learn to speak for yourself, and not for others. If I hated the phone, I'd say so. But I don't drink the Kool-Aid, especially since I'm older than Jobs. I'm my own person, capable of speaking up when something isn't right.
That's wonderful for you. Others reset daily. I've had to with WiFi problems and when Safari got stuck.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)
I've only had to reload once on my girlfriend's phone. Other issues just needed a clean restart, which blackberries need to do too every now and then.
I've only had to reload once on my girlfriend's phone. Other issues just needed a clean restart, which blackberries need to do too every now and then.
Yes, quite a few smartphones have to be reset. Shameful, really. Not necessary if code is written well.
I do think the way the iPhone "crashes" quietly back to the Home screen is pretty clever overall, albeit confusing to new owners... especially since it seems that the phone really needs a reset from the factory to get over the initial common surf&music failure (after which things are okay).
My wife, however, needs a phone that, at most, will only ever need a reset.
I do think the way the iPhone "crashes" quietly back to the Home screen is pretty clever overall, albeit confusing to new owners... especially since it seems that the phone really needs a reset from the factory to get over the initial common surf&music failure (after which things are okay).
My wife, however, needs a phone that, at most, will only ever need a reset.
I think that there are a lot of legitimate concerns that new devices, such as the iPhone, represent to enterprise and why IT departments are frequently, and paradoxically, behind the curve when it comes to new technologies.
My experience with corporate IT has been in many ways very negative and I have long felt that IT departments will inevitably be faced with the need to change their attitude to address the needs of end users rather than attempt to exert control. The erroneous assumption that IT peddles is that the majority of end users are computer illiterate because some users actually are. This attitude may be useful in some circumstances and to resolve some issues but it is an attitude that is outdated, unrealistic, and ultimately counterproductive. In other words, the ideal situation for end users is that IT departments adopt more flexible postures and enable users to fulfill their potential. Rather than constraining choices they should focus on addressing security, compatibility, and productivity needs tailored to each user. If a user is more productive using an iPhone than a BB then that need should be addressed rather than unilaterally rejected. The same should be true for users who prefer Mac's over PC's, especially since diverse computing environments can be highly productive.
The fact is that in today's world technology users are far more sophisticated and informed than IT once assumed them to be. IT needs to embrace and work with users rather than against them in order to adopt the best tools for their corporate structures.
My experience with corporate IT has been in many ways very negative and I have long felt that IT departments will inevitably be faced with the need to change their attitude to address the needs of end users rather than attempt to exert control. The erroneous assumption that IT peddles is that the majority of end users are computer illiterate because some users actually are. This attitude may be useful in some circumstances and to resolve some issues but it is an attitude that is outdated, unrealistic, and ultimately counterproductive. In other words, the ideal situation for end users is that IT departments adopt more flexible postures and enable users to fulfill their potential. Rather than constraining choices they should focus on addressing security, compatibility, and productivity needs tailored to each user. If a user is more productive using an iPhone than a BB then that need should be addressed rather than unilaterally rejected. The same should be true for users who prefer Mac's over PC's, especially since diverse computing environments can be highly productive.
The fact is that in today's world technology users are far more sophisticated and informed than IT once assumed them to be. IT needs to embrace and work with users rather than against them in order to adopt the best tools for their corporate structures.
Yep, this is what happens if I plug my iPod Touch with a passcode into iTunes without it being paired.
The problem is, that since the dawn of the computer industry, IT departments have been able to choose either IBM or Microsoft (who are IBM's OS choice) for solutions, or the choice has been obvious (e.g. Blackberry). The only real exception is servers, but in that case you can stick with what you have, or change if the salesman persuades you, and above all Jenny on reception isn't going to say "I knew the IBM Unix servers were good." when you bought Windows servers.
The problem this time is that the choice isn't obvious, the iPod is a massive success and the iPhone has the same buzz, so there's no reason not to go for it. The problem is, that companies have already chosen Blackberry/Windows Mobile. So if they admit iPhone is the way to go they look bad. The problem is, that if the iPhone does well and IT mandates using Windows Mobile (say) then Jenny on reception will be able to say "I knew the iPhone was good", making IT look really bad.
So for now coming up with "excuses" (some of them are reasonable) as to why the iPhone isn't suitable is an OK strategy.
EDIT:
Of course the real way out of this pickle, is to include a few good models for people to choose from, in this case including the iPhone (and the custom software will have to be made to work with it) otherwise you land up with people choosing their own technology hardware which in an extreme isn't a good idea at all.
May I say that I find your characterization of a typical IT department rather shallow. And plainly wrong when it comes to understanding how difficult it is nowadays to run a complex IT environment in any medium or large company. The amount of requests to try/test new equipment and or applications keeps growing every month, while the amount of services and processes supported by the IT dept never diminishes (the only thing that keeps getting smaller is the budget and the # of people to do the work).
We love all this new tech as much (if not more) as any other, but when it comes to fitting things into an IT environment with all its existing liabilities and the new ones that come with the new tech, fulfilling any request becomes a difficult and time-consuming balancing act.