IT Hates iPhone

While people are loving the iPhone and anticipating the iPhone version 2, the corporate information technology department hates it, yet they can’t do anything about stop employees from buying it.

In barely a year, the iPhone has won over the user’s that favor combinations of Internet device, music player with reverence and cellphone.

Apple Inc. indeed make a great creation as iPhone had captured the 28% of the U.S. smart phone market that seems to have been loved by everyone, both of those who have it and those who are aspiring to grab hold of it. However, in contrast to that, the corporate information technology department hates it.

There’s a topic about information overload as Chevron’s CIO discusses, IT project management and consumer tech at work. Saying that to plan corporate gatherings is getting a lot easier after sometime and definitely a lot less expensive.

iPhone is designed with the consumer in mind that it is said to be less secured compared to other smart phones that are those of Nokie Corp. or Research in Motion Ltd’s Black Berry, and that is according to IT professionals. Secure or not that secure, IT people can’t seem to make the consumption stop or using the device that is correlated to checking email, getting information about prospect clients, and managing sales contacts. It had also been said by Nielsen Co., market researcher that over a quarter of iPhone users at the age of 18 had been practicing passing their phone bill to their employers, as using device for business.

It had even come to a point where IT people had banned the use of iPhone in their workplace saying that there it is not possible to force employees the passwords of their iPhones and that the iPhone is not able to erase corporate, making it all the more unsecured incase if the phone got stolen and such. They also say that the iPhone does not support the software that most of the businesses use and that it is only functional in a cellular network carrier.

But to be realistic, banning it form office is not going to help. As based on this fact, technology experts share that the iPhone would be better if they commit to a change that will adopt both business in technology.

While usually software vendors and other tech suppliers actually have more of a tendency to give their products to their high-ranking executives and IT managers, some are now watching and having a closer look to what their employers have in use. Saying that if the someone in the company is open to embracing a particular device and not seeking IT department’s approval then they will need to develop compatible works for it. If not, the more the chances that they will lose their business over to rivals.

Mike de la Cruz, SAP AG. Vice president said, “It’s clear to us that power is shifting to the users, so we’ve changed our strategy to focus on the users.”

SAP, Germany have said that it sis developing a version to enhance a customer-management software specially for iPhone that will enable sales people to access to information in regards to customers and leads and part of it is because, even it’s own people favor the iPhone. International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y. has also its own share of development of a version of Lotus email and a collaboration for Salesforce.com Inc. and iPhone users, and some more other companies that are tailoring softwares for the iPhone device.

Some software designer are looking for better ways to make iPhone more business friendly. Sybase is just one of the companies that has released a software for forwarding data to mobile devices and corporate email. This software distribution is centralized giving the manufacturer an edge with controlling over what the end users are doing with it. The hot of the iPhone age had made Sybase create this software specially made for iPhone.

Apple itself and along with it’s partner AT&T Inc, are tryng to improve the iPhone, integrating it more on the business side. AT&T since January had been allowing corporate accounts to purchase the iPhone when originally iPhone would usually just bill individual users, and would just seek reimbursement from their company. AT&T wanted to make it easier for customers to used the device, an AT&T spokesperson said, . “We saw business customers clamoring for the iPhone”.

In California, Apple said early this month that it is planning to release a new iPhone this June that has special features allowing it to integrate with Microsoft email, contact management software and calendar. The new software also had allowed iPhone to link to a corporate network, IT people don’t have to worry, because this mode is safe, it had a special feature where IT staffs can erase data on a lost or stolen iPhone device if necessary.

An analyst at Forrester Research Inc. by the name of Simon Yates says that this kind of move will make the IT peeps shut up and even buy the phone itself. Gartner In.c another research company had said, these changes is allowing the iPhone to be used for business use.

In spite iPhone’s effort in making it more business-friendly there are still doubts on it’s efficiency. An IT head from South Carolina Department of Probation, Pardon Services and Parole, by the name of David O’Berry said, that organizations usually use Novell for email and not Microsoft, saying that the changes in Apple won’t help. Some are hesitant to have someone get their computer code, so when Apple is planning to provide a private section in it’s new Apple store where people can download applications, they said that they don’t like the fact that customers had to go pass Apple first to distribute the software to employees and users.

Many iPhone users don’t really think about these technical challenges, I guess it’s just that when you’re an IT person perhaps the standards are double in most cases. All the typical consumer has seen is that the iPhone has the capability to connect to wireless internet networks, with a Web browser that is full fledged and has a big screen that gives them a view of the same internet pages that they are able to get on a personal computer and that this mobile device has the ability to play music and movies.

A Garnter analyst says, even thought other mobile phones have the same feature, their little screen gives them less utility, he’s hoping that big screens will be considered on future smart phones.

A vice president of sales and maketing at U-Line Corp by the name of Mark Russell had his damaged Nokia smart phone replaced with an iPhone. Saying that it has a “cool” factor and main appeal, he also found that it’s web browser on iPhone helped him to find his distributors quickly and get directions to meetings. That since he’s an executive, his company in Milwaukee agreed with his use of the device with the use of software from Visto Corp. that enables him to access email on the iPhone.

Dale Frantz from Auto Warehousing Co. had inspected that alof of vehicle for auto makers have been using an iPhone since the first week the mobile device had been available. He says that Web browsing in iPhone’s can boost productivity.

There was also an incident last February when while waiting for a flight in the Detroit Airport, Frantz had checked the system where in Auto Warehousing uses to track inspections of vehicles. He found that a couple of cars in the same plant had scratches finding out that one of the worker on the assembly was scratching the cars wit his belt. Frantz said that he won’t be able to have found that out if he was using a different mobile device.

However Frantz says that the new features iPhone is giving for business won’t really create a huge impact on their company since their Auto Warehousing uses a Web-based software. He also is hesitant about going to App Store to get a software.

Smart Phones are said to contain a lot of important corporate information that can easily be lost making other technology executives not convinced. While this is in doubt, other devices like BlackBerry that were designed for corporate use that have software enabling the IT department to require their employees password protect or encrypt their device.

Still, iPhone is so popular that it doesn’t really matter, whether or not companies are not allowing the use of iPhones, employees would still want to use them.