iPhone 3G S still not enterprise ready - says Gartner - UPDATED

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 28 June 2009 12:11

Business IT - Technology

He added: "However, employees today demand more choice in personal devices and there are a range of enterprise applications such as e-mail, calendar, contacts, web browsing and so on that are generic and standards based...Gartner has defined some minimum security standards for such 'Appliance' devices - basically the ability for IT to remotely wipe the contents of a lost or stolen device; and the ability to enforce a user password policy such that the device can only be used by a legitimate user. Any device (such as iPhone 3G or 3GS) which supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies can fulfill this requirement."

Asked if Apple had, in developing a device targeted primarily at consumers, had underestimated the demand for the iPhone within enterprises, Simpson said: "I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Other vendors spend a lot of money setting up to sell into the enterprise. That is not Apple's model. They want to produce in volume and ship them out cheaply."

Gartner identifies encryption as a key feature of the new iPhone that makes it more enterprise-friendly but says Apple has either not gone far enough, or not provided sufficient information to enable a full assessment to be made. "Most significant was the addition of always-on AES 256 encryption on all iPhone 3G S models. Unfortunately, Apple did not indicate whether it implemented a Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 certified algorithm, which is a basic entry requirement for the business market. Enterprise buyers must ask Apple to provide complete details on the encryption technology, user and key enrolment processes, recovery methods and other details and measure them against internal security standards."

Simpson added that it was not presently clear whether IT could remotely force the iPhone to be encrypted, or whether users would be able to turn off encryption.

IPhone software 3.0 has introduced a 'findMe' feature and remote erase feature in the event that a phone is lost or stolen, but this works through MobileMe, which Gartner says is "not yet a trusted application for most enterprise clients, adding "Restricted use of MobileMe to this sole function could solve the problem." However Gartner said it was not clear whether the full range of MobileMe functionality would have to be activated to enable this feature.