Large corporate enterprises like to keep their employees in touch with each other, even when they’re not in the office; as a result they often invest in particular technology infrastructures. Currently, Blackberry dominates with the banking industry giants like JPMorgan and Switzerland’s UBS AG. Their dominance, however, may become shaky as both JPMorgan and UBS are looking into alternatives to RIM’s famous handhelds.
Bloomberg brings us the crux of this scoop,
JPMorgan is testing for security in batches of a few hundred devices with a decision expected later this year, one of the people familiar with the matter said. JPMorgan would not buy iPhones or Android phones for employees, as it now does with BlackBerrys. Rather, the bank would allow employees to use the devices to send and receive corporate e-mail if they make the purchase themselves, the other person said…
UBS doesn’t plan to replace the BlackBerrys it issues with iPhones anytime soon, spokesman Jean-Raphael Fontannaz said by telephone from Zurich. Rather, UBS is testing the possibility of allowing employees to use an iPhone or other smartphone to connect to UBS’s e-mail system without restricting the private use of the device, he said.
Apple has been trying hard to garner the attention of the business world and turn it away from Blackberry. So this is just a next-step in that process by showing that iPhones have a worthwhile technological innovation to these business giants. This move, along with RIM’s continued perseverance in the business sector, has also pushed Nokia—a long time enterprise sector technology company—to a more defensive move with their new CEO.
Enterprise communication technology often suffers from a particular amount of pickiness by the companies who embrace it. This is primarily because the more loose the technology standards the harder it is for them to keep their inner workings under wraps—security becomes a paramount decision when applying a new technology. As a result, many large companies issue business-only devices to employees to help separate their private lives from their work lives. JPMorgan permitting employees to use personal iPhone and Adroid smartphones becomes an interesting move in light of this.
It may also mean that they feel they’ve vetted the software for the iPhone that connects to their system as good enough to not concern them overly. A very good thing for Apple.
The companies in question also cited cost savings and employee preference for this move. With employees willing to purchase their own handsets, it would cost the company far less money to outfit them and still remain secure-enough.
With loyalty to Blackberry fading and iPhone picking up the slack—earlier this year Apple announced that over 80% of the Fortune 100 companies were deploying or testing iPhones—RIM and Nokia both may need to start looking for better strategies.
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