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Microsoft Says iPhone Is Irrelevant To Business
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 20, 2007 05:08 PM
from the is-it-not-supposed-to-be dept.
from the is-it-not-supposed-to-be dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Microsoft exec has turned attack dog, lashing out at Apple's iPhone by saying the device isn't good for business. Why? Because the iPhone is 'a closed device that you cannot install applications on.' Specifically, he's talking about Microsoft Office. 'While the entry of the iPhone (with its cut-down version of Mac OS X) into this market offers new options for consumers, Sorenson believes user familiarity with the Windows Mobile interface — and the ease with which companies can buy and develop applications for the platform — will sustain its increasing popularity and help keep the iPhone out of the lucrative corporate market.'"
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Technology: AT&T to Target iPhone to Enterprise 315 comments
narramissic writes "AT&T is reportedly preparing to market the iPhone to business users and is scurrying to ensure that its backend enterprise billing and support systems will accommodate the device when it ships. Analysts are baffled by the move. In addition to running an OS X-based operating system, which enterprises may be reluctant to adopt, the iPhone is also expected to have a number of shortcomings for business users, including not having a removable battery and not having buttons, which would make it difficult to dial while driving says Gartner's Ken Dulaney. Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis, also thinks the iPhone won't be a good option for enterprise customers because enterprises won't be able to write applications for the phone."
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Jealousy and Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, they do know that the more iPhones that get bought, the less they'll make in 'doze-based cell phone OS sales ...and in the same market niches where Microsoft makes it's own money when it comes to the things.
Re:Jealousy and Fear (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Jealousy and Fear (Score:5, Funny)
I believe that is "JE FUD" which is french for "I make shit up about the competition."
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Re:Jealousy and Fear (Score:5, Funny)
I believe that is "JE FUD" which is french for "I make shit up about the competition."
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Re:Oblig Python reference (Score:5, Funny)
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Time to update the US corporate slogan (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess now it should be:
"What's good for Microsoft is good for business."
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft complaining about a company locking competitors out? that's rich...
On the contrary, this is why Microsoft is dominant and Apple is tiny little niche player. Microsoft has ALWAYS generously courted developers for their platforms. They understand that they can't do it all... a vibrant third-party market means more people by Microsoft's platform. Why do you think there's no such thing as the "Microsoft PC"?
Apple has always been incredibly hostile to third parties.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Have you not seen Microsoft try and completely dominate everything remotely related to computers? They pretty much wiped the floor with alternative Office Suites. They started focusing on web browsers, and for a while pages were built solely with IE in mind. They've created unnecessary media formats where good alternatives were readily available. And what the hell are they doing with a search engine? It's never made sense to me that the company who makes an OS also needs to make a search engine. Then you've got the Zune, the XBox, a number of devices that run Windows Mobile. In server space they have web servers, mail servers, etc. The only thing remotely related to computers that I haven't seen Microsoft try to dominate is CAD software.
There may be a wide variety of third party software and hardware, but it's not because microsoft has just yielded the field.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop. You're both right. Microsoft plays nice for a while, lets a lot of other players take all the risk of innovating to see what products keep their platform valuable, waits for the hard work of perfecting the design to be over, watches to see what features have the most to do with market appeal, and then swoops in with their version - shoddy, but universal to the platform. No sane IT department would want to vet IE as a safe and desirable application, but they don't have much choice ("I can't get on the Internet!" "What happens when you try?" "I can't. It's missing!" "What?" "The Internet! The blue 'E'! I think a virus ate it!"). Not many web application developers would want to code for IE, but it's a safe design assumption. They can't very well tell a potential corporate customer "To use all the features, you'd want to get Firefox or Opera", the company already has web filtering and proxy software, not to mention Windows group policies, that are only capable of locking down IE. Release some CRM software that doesn't suck (please, pretty please do that) and watch how quickly you get "embraced".
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I remember reading (no links sorry), the iPhone will not support the installation of unsigned applications and plug-ins. However, everyone expects this to be simple to disable or override at the cost of invalidating your warranty.
Also there was some discussion that suggested that 3rd parties can request that their code be signed...
Apple just wants to prevent people f
I smell a ZunePhone... (Score:5, Insightful)
'course, a more likely explanation is that MSFT already has a cell phone OS biz they'd rather keep protected from such things as competition, no?
IOW: Nothing to see here, move along... :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.google.com/news?q=zune%20phone [google.com]
Not Irrelevant, But Limited in Appeal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Blackberry made it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they are being a little delusional.
Re:Blackberry made it (Score:4, Interesting)
There is also a consumer oriented version which can access any imap server, but this version is intentionally crippled.
Also, the "enterprise server" only runs on windows, so your still tied in... I wonder if this will change now that microsoft are competing head on with blackberry, after all it would be incredibly stupid of them to have their primary product dependant on their biggest competitor.
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Who exactly.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, if the Blackberries couldn't read docs and presentations none of the managers around my place would ever get around to approving any of my stuff. It's absolutely critical if they're going to be used in the corporate world at large to be able to read word documents, power point presentations, and to a much lesser extent pdfs and excel spreadsheets. Edit? Well, people can probably get by that. It must also connect to either exchange or the other
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
So?
Apple doesn't target large business/enterprise markets. They never have. Their products are always marketed as tools for empowering individuals. If you didn't know better and could only guess from reviewing their advertising, you might think that businesses don't use personal computers. Often in these cases they behave more like a consumer electronics company rather than a PC maker.
Apple has never shipped HP or Dell level volumes and they've never seemed interested in trying. They get waiting lists for some of their products as it is.
Adding enterprise app accessibility would only introduce bugs, increase complexity, and reduce the overall user-friendlyness of the device, none of which would be Apple's fault (and I'm not even a fanboi). Besides, can anyone imagine Jobs up on stage at some show, introducing the latest email or ERP integration piece? No one drools over that kind of stuff.
It's clear that part of Apple's rep for simplicity is due to the avoidance of the products and systems that can't be made simple. Enterprise apps are necessary and useful, but their deployment and use are a clusterfuck and probably always will be. Apple can't change that, so why take the downside?
WTF are you talking about? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/itpro/ [apple.com]
Here's just some of their headlines from the news box:
Apple Takes on Exchange Server
Apple's Open Calendar Server vs. Microsoft Exchange
Xserve Review
Apple's Xserve Gives an Enterprise Alternative
http://www.apple.com/itpro/solutions.html [apple.com]
Need Help Configuring Apple Solutions?
Contact Apple Consulting Services for comprehensive onsite consulting and enterprise-oriented services.
One of Apple's big enterprise selling points always has been interoperability with MS & UNIX products.
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Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Empowering individuals? please tell me your a shill because if a real person speaks like that then the marketroids have won and we're all doomed to annihalation through mass stupidity.
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Not FOR business. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is not stupid, they did their market research for this thing and know exactly what features Joe Public wants, not what Mr. Jack Business or Mr. Slashdot Nerdling wants. They want to woo the Joe Publics, and I strongly suspect that they will.
I think MS is complaining because they know that the iPhone is going to destroy the Zune, and they have nothing to compete with it. Not only that, once enough Joe Public's get a hold of these things, there market for WinCE will be under fire - and then their market for Office on such devices. Apple is smart, they are picking their battles. They are not even trying to compete with the business market at this point. They are targeting a totally different segment, and MS is scared that they will win.
Think of the changes in the marketplace, if everyone owns an iPhone in the public space, and becomes accustomed to using OS X on their handheld... What sort of PC will Joe Public consider buying after using a OS X device? I suspect more iMac's will fly off the shelves after the iPhone becomes established. I think Microsoft is seriously afraid of losing the mobile market, the DRM/Music Market, and eventually the desktop market. And the iPhone is the device that will drive in that wedge.
This Just In! (Score:5, Funny)
Useless for business? (Score:4, Insightful)
Forget the IPhone, the Irack is more important (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzBmHY3URWs [youtube.com]
not for business anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
MIKE: I need to call Chet ask him about that spreadsheet
CHET: My phone is ringing!
MIKE:Great, let's call Sue and look at the powerpoint!
CHET: As long as it has plenty of bar graphs!
See for yourself. Apple doesn't give a flying flip about the suit, at least not while they are at work. Their ads are filled with attractive youngsters talking about meeting up for bike riding and whitewater rafting! They don't CARE about the business market.
MS and PDA (Score:3, Interesting)
I had no problem using my PDA for writing. I would enter it as plain text, and then format it in MS Word when I got the big computer. The PDA was to keep contacts and appointments, and jot down drafts. I saw no one complaining that theri franklin planner was inadequate because it did not include a typewriter. Same thing.
I suspect the problem with the iPhone is that it is not going to fit in with the MS workcylce, specifically exchange. Of course blackberry is not a problem because I believe it does have an exchange component. Apple, OTOH, is just uses standard protocols, and does nothing special. Therefore, when the executives get their iPhones, which they will, it is conceivable that at some point MS will have to open up exchange. This means the MS should be scared because the iPhone is the thin end of the wedge. MS lucked out that the there were enough hacks to maintain the monopoly with the PDA threat, but they may not be so lucky with the phones. Just look at what the iPod is doing to the precious WMP formats.
Request for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody else?
Thank you sir, you may lower your hand.
Re:Request for comment (Score:5, Informative)
I've used it. It's one of the few things on WM 5.0 that actually works more or less as you'd expect it to. That said, it's really not terribly useful. I can't see any situation where it would be more useful than, say, an automatic Word-to-txt converter on the phone.
begin sort-of on-topic rant:
WM 5.0 has one of the worst interfaces I've ever seen on any computing device. Inconsistent from things like the "dismiss" button which swaps sides depending on the app you're dismissing, to the utterly abitrary selection of which functions have buttons on the bottom bar and which have nice big buttons in the main screen, to the random way you quit various applications - do I click the "OK" button, or the "X" in the top right, or the "close" text on the bottom bar - the answer is different with nearly every app. Or the fact it takes 7 clicks on tiny little menu items and icons with the stylus to find the task manager to switch between running applications. Some of our more impatient and less technical users were just rebooting their phones when they ran out of memory rather than navigating that maze each time.
Then there's the flat out bugs and glitches (some of which I'm told will be fixed in some subsequent release... on a thousand dollar phone... which is a crucial business tool in my job... great, thanks, let me just bend over a bit more for you) like the way the hard buttons just stop working every so often (sometimes all of them, sometimes just one or two, like the "answer call" button). Or the screen which sometimes randomly fades to white. i.e., when you're on a call to a client and want to hang up, but the buttons don't work and the screen has gone white so you can't see where to click, the only way to hang up is to take the battery out. Prior to this I'd never seen a telephone handset that crashes and has to be rebooted.
These are the barest tip of the iceburg of the problems with these phones. They're totally unsuitable for business use or any other use where the phone needs to be relied upon. The idea of the makers of this toy dissing the as yet unreleased iPhone as irrelevant for business is hilarious.
If you need a phone to impress your friends at the bar or to play solitare on the train home from work, a WM 5.0 device is perfect for you. If you actually need to rely on it as a phone, mobile data connection, and PDA, i.e., as a business tool... I'm not sure what your other options are, but loads of phones do PDA stuff now, and plenty can do email, and although admittedly Exchange calendering integration is well-implemented and handy in WM 5, if you can give that one feature up it is well worth doing so.
These bloody things were pushed on us geeks by management and have been an unmitigated disaster from day 1. My immediate manager, not a particularly technical guy, implied I was some kind of Luddite when I expressed some doubts (fairly mild ones, as it turned out) prior to the rollout. We previously all had Nokia 8210i handsets and iBurst [iburst.com.au] PCMCIA cards for our laptops, which worked reliably and quickly about 95% of the time.
I am *not* a blind MS hater. I use and deploy their products at work, and they're much better than they once were. But WM is simply crap in the very worst traditions of half-assed marketing-department-driven Microsoft dross.
Apple would have to try pretty hard with the iPhone to make it any less relevant than Windows Mobile.
*sigh* end rant. Sorry about that, WM 5.0 has made me quite bitter.
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He's right. Sorta. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple's market is the same as the market for things like the Motorola RAZR. I'm sure it will be sell well just from the cool factor, no matter how impractical it is.
Ask a stupid question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ask a company about its competition, and they will trash the competition.
Let's get serious here... asking Microsoft what it thinks of its competition? Such an interview has no value. The response will always be negative. Ask Microsoft about any of its competition, and the response will always be the same.
Step 1 (Score:5, Funny)
In the Microsoft playbook: say device is beneath your worry;
Step 2: Attack device as imminent failure;
Step 3: Watch as device becomes success;
Step 4: Purchase company which produces device. If this is not possible;
Step 5: Release half-assed version of device which fails on all levels except hype.
I'd be carefull (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is together with Google in offering Google Maps on the iPhone. I clearly remember the impressive presentation of that specific feature. It's bound to move toward a killer application for those offering Navigation systems. And before you can say 'MS Office sucks' we're likely to have Google Apps on mobile devices. And they definitely are a competion to anything MS in the mobile area.
Do you people still remember Ami Pro, Lotus 123 and Windows 3.1? That was all we needed back then and with the browser apps we get exactly that. On top of a bazillion layers running them on a performance hog called JavaScript. But it's all we need. With phones running 500Mhz CPUs and Full Scale Browsers stripped down versions of expensive proprietary shrinkwrap applications are getting more harder to sell by the minute. And MS is feeling that right now.
You Know (Score:4, Insightful)
the iPhone can read Microsoft Office (Score:5, Informative)
One hundred and forty phone models.... (Score:4, Funny)
Now that's the most abusive utilization of the term "run" that I have ever seen.
Umm, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Umm, no. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Microsoft are correct (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, get a clue.
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Re:Microsoft are correct (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, and goodnight.
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Re:Microsoft are correct (Score:5, Insightful)
With the increase of rich applications in the browser (AJAX etc.), the need to install binaries on a mobile decreases. If, as promised, the iPhone basically has the full build of Safari on it -- then this should be possible.
I'm no Mac fan boy, but realise with each passing year I use a web browser more, and stand-alone applications less. The iPhone fits with that trend.
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Re:Microsoft are correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure he is... assuming your office only uses desktop-installed versions of MS Office software. But what if the iPhone had a full-capability web browser installed on it [apple.com], and you used one of several web-based [google.com] Office-like [slashdot.org] applications, and your company had web-based email & calendaring interfaces, and used IM for business communication as well?
Suddenly that non-business iPhone looks pretty darn business-capable. Microsoft has already stumbled several times in recent memory by dismissing the ability of these internet tubes to route around their monopolistic strategies... how many more of these mistakes can they afford to make?
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why run something bloated when you can run something bloated on web page running off a web browser inside a tiny mobile phone... web office apps only make sense on actual PC's with solid connections.
Office Mobile is designed for MOBILE PHONES it is optimized for MOBILE PHONES- I couldn't imagine running web applications on a cell phone- that's so counter-intuitive. What would happen if you went t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a Palm 700p as my main cell phone. While I don't use the Office-compatible apps too often, but it's handy in rare instances. For instance, a client emails me a Word document detailing changes to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure they haven't already past that point, it may be that the last mistake they could afford (and maintain their top-of-the-heap position) has already been made, and not caught up to them. One place that may have been is not staying out ahead of the OLPC. One thing that isn't often ment
Re:Microsoft are correct (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)