| Note to Professionals: Go Away, iPhone is Not For You | Today's Top Stories | ||||||||||||
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(Column) - Microsoft recently made the headlines as it commented on the iPhone’s lack of support for professionals on the go. Of course, the company’s reasons are close minded (i.e., a lack of an Office suite), but Microsoft is surprisingly right with this assessment. Apple’s iPhone is going to be an entertainment device, not a Palm or a BlackBerry killer. Here’s why: The iPhone lacks a physical QWERTY keyboard that makes messaging a breeze. I don’t know about you, but I personally wouldn’t want to type on a touchscreen keyboard. I have used such a keyboard on a number of devices (from PC displays to Nokia’s latest N800 Internet Tablet), and it’s certainly not as efficient as typing on a physical keyboard. A lot of professionals are used to their Palms and BlackBerrys, and it’s not going to be pretty when they have to go through the learning curve. People who carry smartphones aren’t doing so for the entertainment value, which is iPhone’s strong point. Apple is touting its audio and video playback capabilities, which are useless to people who are getting bombarded with messages all day long. The professionals I know barely have the time to answer all of their e-mail in a day, let alone listen to and watch audio and video files when they could be utilizing the time to catch up on their messages. Sure, they might want to take a break and disconnect for a bit, but I doubt anyone is going to ditch their highly competent smartphone just so they could disconnect with the iPhone. Surprise, Surprise: iPhone Not Coming Down in Price EVER Apple’s iPhone is too closed to be useful to professionals and lacks connectivity to Microsoft Exchange servers and other secure networks, which is a basic requirement for almost all professionals. It’s definitely not going to be adopted by enterprise customers, which is where all the battles begin and end. If your company doesn’t support it, everything else is moot. This is where I disagree with Microsoft, since it’s so uptight about the lack of an onboard Office suite. Listen, RIM’s BlackBerry, to give one example, doesn’t have an integrated Office suite, though you can still open and read your documents in a variety of formats. And I think it would be fair to say that BlackBerry continues to be a dominate player, Office suite or not. As far as I know, there are very few people who are going to put final touches on a critical report or make a PowerPoint presentation for a key client on their smartphone. It’s not going to happen, and thus the lack of an onboard Office suite is uncritical. Not to mention, professionals who needs to finish reports and make PowerPoint presentations on the road will have their notebooks with them all of the time. With that said, Apple’s iPhone isn’t meant for professionals. It’s an entertainment device that can make calls and check messages with a heavy focus on audio and video playback. There’s nothing wrong with that. Microsoft is comparing Apples to Oranges here, to sound really clichéd. Just like the BlackBerry will never be the top choice for a multimedia fan; similarly, the iPhone will never be the most desired choice amongst professionals. It’s as simple as that. I don’t understand how Microsoft can misinterpret the target market for the iPhone so easily. How clueless can you be? |
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