Optus survey finds iPhone 3G getting strong traction in the enterprise

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 30 July 2009 11:57

Business IT - Technology

Optus has released the IP Index, its annual survey of corporate use of all forms of IP communications. It shows the iPhone, developed primarily as a consumer device, making very strong headway in enterprises against more established technologies.

The index is based on a survey, primarily online, of enterprise communications decision-makers in 232 organisations (not all Optus customers). Eighty percent of respondents were from private sector enterprises and 20 percent from government. They represented a broad spectrum of employee sizes, with 38 percent from large corporate/government entities with over 1,000 employees down to 16 percent with less than 200 employees.

Over half (57 percent) of those surveyed believe the Apple iPhone 3G has some suitability to business. According to Optus, "The device's 3G credibility in the enterprise market is further enhanced by the 27 percent who see it as a device ideally suited to business use." It notes that "This seemingly rapid acceptance in the business market suggests future years will see increased levels of Apple iPhone 3G adoption." Only 16 percent or respondents said the iPhone was a consumer device not suitable for business.

Commenting on the result Optus Business marketing director, Scott Mason, told iTWire: "If we had done a survey 12 months ago just after the iPhone launched, I suspect that [16 percent figure] would have been much bigger.

He added: "What we have seen is that corporates are surprisingly accepting of supplying iPhones or the fact that employees will be bringing their own iPhones to work and wanting a [employer supplied] SIM. We were rather surprised to find that 24 percent of respondents reported that at least some of their employees use their own iPhones to access the corporate network. So we expect to be called upon to provide a lot more SIM-only solutions."

Optus also identified another finding of the survey that bodes well for the future of the iPhone in the enterprise. "This acceptance of [the iPhone] reflects the observations of previous IP Index reports that many enterprise mobility strategies are device-driven rather than OS-driven.

"Enterprises identify devices that meet the needs of their employees and then mobilise existing applications to suit delivery to these devices...The importance of device characteristics in the decision process suggests that the upward shift in BlackBerry devices used as a standard mobile OS may be a function of the fact that the past year has seen the introduction of a larger number of updated models from this brand than in previous years."

Since 2008 Optus found a substantial increase in the number of organisations standardising on one mobile OS. As the platform of choice, Blackberry soared from 25 percent to 36 percent of respondents, while Windows Mobile lost ground, from 28 to 22 percent. Symbian gained marginally from nine to 10 percent, and the iPhone achieved four percent, an impressive result given its short time in the market.

This result bodes well for the future success of the iPhone in the corporate world, but the lack lustre performance of Windows Mobile seems surprising given the dominance of Windows in corporate IT and the fact that the past 12 months has seen a good range of new Windows Mobile smartphones emerge from HTC and others..