54.3 F
San Diego
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

iPhone’s Handy Business Tools a Hit in Corporate World

For years, hardly a week went by when someone didn’t whip out their iPhone and evangelize the unconverted about how amazing it is. Nowadays, that’s happening more often at the workplace, as executives switch from their old standbys , typically the BlackBerry , to Apple’s alluring smartphone.

“It connects me directly to my business software,” says Elliott Rabin of San Diego’s Ridout Plastics, who is an almost daily user of NetSuite, a business suite produced by a San Francisco software maker of the same name.

“With NetSuite, I can log on to our system via the browser and the iPhone app allows me to check my inventory, my bank balance, or see which products are moving the fastest.”

Of course the iPhone is a runaway consumer hit. What’s surprising is the traction it’s gaining in the corporate world in such a compressed amount of time, industry observers say.

“I think Apple and the iPhone are about to blow the doors off,” said Gregg Weiss, founder of iPhoneAppQuotes.com, a Florida-based service for businesses and entrepreneurs who want to get connected with reputable iPhone app developers as well as a lead generation service for developers. “A lot of CEOs are now saying, top down, we’ve got to run our business with this because so many of the applications are productivity-related.”


More Business Apps

According to a July study by iPhoneAppQuotes, what was once among application developers a 50-50 split between producing business applications and consumer applications is now a 70-30 split in favor of business applications. Medical, education, business and book applications are the most requested categories of applications in the Apple App Store, according to the report.

The App Store contains 85,000 applications; an estimated 20 percent of those are business apps.

Rabin says he’s downloaded at least 30 business apps from the App Store, which claims 2 billion downloads to date. Among his favorites are an app for Wells Fargo Bank and a Bloomberg app that aggregates business headlines customized to his preferences.

“Since the advent of the 2.0 operating system, which allows connection to Microsoft Exchange, the dominant enterprise e-mail platform, more businesses are letting the iPhone in,” notes Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner, a Connecticut-based information technology research firm. The 3.0 release of the operating system came as further comfort to IT staff, he said. For one thing, data can now be wiped out remotely if the device is lost or stolen. Secondly, it can be configured so that users are forced to create complex passwords.

The iPhone is making inroads at the San Diego office of RSM McGladrey, an accounting and tax firm where Terry Huffman and at least one of her colleagues have gleefully converted.

“I literally don’t have to take my laptop home,” says Huffman, director of business development. “I use Salesforce regularly and the most important thing about it is that I can expand the screen size and actually read it, which goes for everything.”


The Keyboard Factor

Indeed, the iPhone’s resolution and screen is a consistent rave factor. But can executives that have to push out text in volumes , whether by e-mail or other formats , warm up to the touch-screen keyboard?

Anecdotal evidence suggests they can. But Avondale Partners analyst John Bright thinks Apple may need to address the issue in future phones by way of a physical keypad.

“The main drawback for enterprise adoption is the keyboard,” Bright says. “With the touch screen’s sensitivity, more people prefer the hard keys. Is there a way to counter that? I think there is.”

Nevertheless, consumer and businesspeople alike don’t appear to be willing to wait. According to the August Mobile Metrics Report issued by AdMob, a mobile advertising and analytics outfit, market share for the iPhone OS increased 7 percent from February to August, while RIM’s operating system , which drives the BlackBerry , declined by 2 percent.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

Oberon Eyes Europe for Renewable DME

Leaders of Influence in Law 2024

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-