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Filed under: Enterprise, iPhone

Deutsche Bank says IT warms to iPhone

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore says corporate IT is warming up to the iPhone. In a research note published yesterday das analyst says, "There is growing evidence that the iPhone is making inroads into the Enterprise."

Whitmore thinks Apple will sell 2 million iPhones to big business by the end of the year, some through reimbursements to employees and some through IT department purchases. If those numbers hold, the iPhone will own about 7% of the Enterprise smartphone market in 2009, up from the 2% it controlled in 2008.

What's up with the shift? Whitmore notes four reasons:

  • User satisfaction - highlighted by the recent J.D. Power surveys of both consumer and business smartphone users
  • Enterprise applications
  • The iPhone's level of innovation
  • The virtual keyboard - according to Whitmore, the thought that business users have to have a physical keyboard on a smartphone has turned out to be a 'fallacy.'

However, businesspeople might not agree that they don't need a physical keyboard if their first virtual keyboard isn't on an iPhone. UK researcher Canalys has taken a look at touchscreens and future smartphone purchases. The firm finds the ground shifting the touchscreen's way. Of the 3,000 survey respondents in the UK, Germany, and France, 38% say their next phone will have a finger-oriented touchscreen, while 16% say theirs will have a stylus-operated touchscreen.

But a lot of people who have virtual keyboard-only phones miss the physical keys. According to Canalys, 53% of people who own a touchscreen phone say they won't buy another one, though they may have bought the wrong one for them to start. A majority of iPhone and HTC users say they'll keep the virtual keys on their next phones, while less than a third of Sony Ericsson touchscreen phone owners say their next phone won't have buttons.

[via Fortune, The Register]

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Software, iPhone

On doubting the iPhone and making the wrong comparisons

John Gruber already pointed out some flaws of The Register's Lance Davis who doubts the iPhone, but I have an even bigger problem with the line of thinking Davis used in his analysis. He writes:
Remember, the mobile industry is one where some of the biggest companies in the world have tried and failed: Siemens, Philips, Fujitsu. None of them have creditable [sic] market shares. Even IBM put a toe in the water in the late nineties and then stayed away.
Obviously, no one can truly say one thing or another about the iPhone until we all get our hands on one and the market decides whether the device sinks or swims. Until then, everyone is free to say what they want as long as we all take it with a grain of salt. The qualm I have with Davis' analogy is that the manufacturers he cites - Siemens, Philips and Fujitsu - are using Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform on their smartphones. Setting aside the debate about Microsoft's ability to write software for a moment, the more significant factor here is that these manufacturers are using someone else's software on their products, which means they're susceptible to all the circumstances that come with pairing one's hardware with software they have an inarguable lack of knowledge and experience with.

Continue readingOn doubting the iPhone and making the wrong comparisons

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Internet Tools

Nova Media Address Book plugin for Nokia, Sony Ericsson phones

German-based Nova Media landed on our radar last year with their iSync plugin that supports more phones than Mac OS X's default set. Not content with mere syncing, however, the company also makes an Address Book plugin, recently updated with more supported models, that allows phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson to shake hands with Apple's contact manager for all sorts of phone call integration. Sending calls to voicemail, replying via an SMS, logging the call and even starting one are all possible from within Address Book. And while AB supports these operations with the default batch of iSync-supported phones, Nova Media's Address Book plugin enables these operations with a large set of Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones that Apple likely never will support.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a demo available for download, but at roughly $8.50 USD (Euro 6,50), I bet it would be hard to go wrong. After all, I can say from personal experience that $8.50 would be a small price to pay for the satisfying ability of clicking a button in a Mac OS X dialog to send someone directly to voicemail.

Filed under: Software, Hacks, Productivity, Tips and tricks

Add SMS support to Address Book for some Sony Ericsson phones

Apple's iSync supports a lot of phones (and we don't have time now to get into why it doesn't support all phones), but that support for some phones can be a little wonky - namely Sony Ericssons (and I just happen to own a W800i, one of the victims). For these phones, iSync supports syncing just fine, but Address Book might not be able to talk to the phone for SMS sending or phone number dialing. Enter this article at mobile.feisar.com which offers a simple workaround for fixing this broken support and enabling Address Book with the true Sony Ericsson super powers it deserves.

As an added bonus, the article even offers a download link for Apple's Property List Editor, which I believe is a tool that can only be had by installing the Developer tools from a Mac OS X installation DVD. This simple little app can come in handy, however, for all sorts of file tinkering hints like this one, as well as many from the likes of macosxhints.com.

Check out the mobile.feisar hint to get Address Book working with your somewhat-supported Sony Ericsson phone, and just in case you're getting any ideas: I have no idea if this simple tip can work for other brands/phones, so proceed at your own risk.

Tip of the Day

Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.


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