Open Source Blog

While for consumers the iPhone may be hitting all the right buttons, it's still got stiff competition versus Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile in the enterprise space.

Forrester said the first generation iPhone wasn’t ready for enterprise use because:

The iPhone Doesn't Allow Data on the Device to be Encrypted
The iPhone Does Not Natively Support "Push" Corporate E-mail or Wireless Calendar Syncing
The iPhone Does Not Run Third-Party Applications Without Voiding Its Warranty
The iPhone Cannot be Locked or Wiped Remotely
The iPhone Lacks a Physical Keyboard
The iPhone Has Limited Carrier Support Outside the United States, It's Locked Into Carriers
The iPhone is (Very) Expensive
The iPhone Is a First-Generation Device
Apple Doesn't Offer Replacement Batteries for the iPhone
There's No Proof That iPhones Are Suitable Business Devices

So what about the latest, 3G iPhones? Are they any more suited to enterprise use?

Yes, says analyst firm Gartner, but “with caveats”. The latest Gartner report entitled “iPhone 2.0 is Ready for the Enterprise, but Caveats Apply” by Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst, argues that with the release of the iPhone Firmware 2.0 update, iPhone software “meets its criteria for appliance-level support.”

The iPhone may be ready for enterprise use if the IT department locks it down. Pic: Iowa Spirit Walker on Flickr, CC licence.

In other words, IT departments could turn iPhones into appliances, which means support is limited to a narrow set of applications, such as voice, e-mail, personal information manager (PIM) and browsing.

“However, iTunes and iPhone Configuration Utility create security issues for higher levels of enterprise support,” said Gartner. So although the firm says iPhones could be supported by enterprise IT departments, it’s advising caution due to what it is calling caveats.

The research follows up on Gartner’s early assessment and seeks to determine whether Apple has delivered its promised improvements. Mr Dulaney weighs the iPhone's features against Gartner’s criteria for appliance support, and it helps organisations to determine how the new iPhone measures up against BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

One of the key findings, according to the report, is that, “The iPhone can be wiped clean via a standard instruction from Exchange, and can force the use of a complex password if the alphanumeric setting is checked on the Exchange 2003 SP2 or 2007 administrative console. Gartner’s tests of the complex password and the wipe feature enforcement indicate that the iPhone reacts the same as a Windows Mobile device, forcing the use of a complex password and clearing the device contents when the password policy is violated.”

Certainly, the latest generation of the iPhone has answered most of the objections Forrester had to the first generation’s use in the enterprise. But while it is now possible for companies to turn the iPhone into appliances, thereby avoiding some of the risks associated with iTunes and the iPhone Configuration Utility, those – as far as users are concerned – are part of what makes the iPhone worth using in the first place.

If you’re going to have to lock it all down (and potentially annoy users in the process) why not just opt for Blackberry, Symbian or Windows Mobile devices for your end users instead?