Competing mobile-phone platforms may enter back door of the enterprise

Yet another mobile-device operating system maker wants to cater to the enterprise. Google's Linux-based OS is slated for some enterprise features later this year, a Google executive recently proclaimed. The revelation follows the progressive moves that Apple and Palm are making with the iPhone and the webOS platforms. The desire is natural as Research in Motion has made a nice living off targeting the higher spending enterprise segment. The question is: Will any of these competing OS platforms make significant inroads into the enterprise?

RIM  has had a bull's-eye on its back for some time now, as a slew of handset makers and OS providers have tried to usher in the next "BlackBerry killer." BlackBerry devices have become entrenched in the enterprise because RIM has done such a good job at seeding the market by continually increasing its geographic and channel reach, while digging deeper into its existing enterprise base. And of course, it's really good at one important thing: Push email. All the while, competitors are just trying to get in the front door at the enterprise.

But times are changing. Competitors are now finding they can get in through the back door. Employees are looking to consumer friendly phones as one device to meet both their work and personal needs. Philippe Winthrop, director of business mobility solutions with Strategy Analytics, calls this the consumerization of enterprise mobility. In particular, he said, people expect to have the ability to bring their individually liable device into their work setting. And some enterprises are obliging.

That appears to be the trend that Apple is playing on. During the second quarter, the company reported that about 20 percent of Fortune 100 companies placed orders of 10,000 units or more, while some governmental agencies ordered up to 25,000 units.

Apple COO Tim Cook gave color on those numbers during the company's conference call, "the iPhone is particularly doing well with small businesses and larger organizations that allow (employees) to purchase phones for individual use, both in corporate and government settings." 

Eugene Signorini, vice president of enterprise applications & mobile solutions with the Yankee Group, says it's likely that businesses are giving employees the opportunity to buy the iPhone as part of corporate-sponsored programs, and there is a good play for that. Get enough corporate-sponsored deals, and Apple begins to have a distribution channel into the enterprise that could lead to the deployment of applications inside the enterprise down the road.

The hope would be, of course, that the platform features are up to snuff when it comes to enterprise mobility needs, such as security and device management, when volumes begin ramping up.

Whether these new platforms supplant BlackBerry devices in the long run is another story, but it's becoming increasingly clear that they won't be shut out of the enterprise altogether, which is a much different story than what we saw just two years ago. Maybe a marketable value proposition for competing devices and platforms is one that plays up a complementary position to BlackBerry rather than always trying to replace that enterprise juggernaut. - Lynnette