2008 has been a year of massive innovation in both smartphone devices and the user experience. It’s hard to miss the flurry of new devices from Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG, just to name a few. And of course over the last few months, RIM has introduced a bunch of cool new BlackBerry smarphones– the Bold, the Pearl Flip and most recently the Storm.
In this three-part series, we are going to cover three different angles from the enterprise IT point of view:
- Riding the Replacement Wave for company-owned smartphones, which we discuss below;
- Upgrading the BlackBerry smartphones already in use to tap the latest features; and
- The invasion of employee-owned devices.
Latest 3 BlackBerry Smartphones
With users clamoring to get their hands on one of these new smartphones and start using many of the new apps and features, these scenarios really complicate things for already-overworked IT departments.
So, what’s the IT department to do when the CEO, executive vice president or sales team say they want that latest hot new smartphone?
Riding the Replacement Wave
For replacement, there are two choices of course: BlackBerry smartphones or other new devices like the iPhone. What we’ve learned from our customers who have faced these choices is that there are three real-world fundamentals of productivity that not everyone appreciates: battery life, usability and enterprise-class quality.
As a mobile IT professional, you already know why BlackBerry is built for the enterprise (security, manageability, etc.) – but your VIP users won’t appreciate that. So, here’s a set of key points to help you convince these VIPs that BlackBerry continues to be the best way to go compared to any other device (iPhone, Windows Mobile or proprietary OS):
- Battery Life – Even with heavy use, BlackBerry smartphones consistently last a day or longer on one charge. Numerous tests and postings complain that these other devices last much less the working hours of 1 business day…and you cannot change to a spare battery. Can your VIP live with having his or her smartphone die after lunch on the road?
- Calendar Sync – BlackBerry smartphones automatically keeps e-mail and PIM up to date. But the Microsoft ActiveSync technology that the other devices rely on only replicates e-mail and it does not handle calendar, address book or other resources. Can your VIP live with that?
- Office Document Editing – These latest BlackBerry smartphones (and older devices upgraded with latest OS V4.2 and V 4.3) include built-in support for editing native Microsoft Office documents like Word and Excel files. While you can do that too with Windows mobile devices, it’s impossible to do so with iPhones and other proprietary devices. Can your VIP live without document editing?
- Cut and Paste – For years BlackBerry has supported cut and paste from one application to another or within a mobile application. Other devices do not offer such as simple feature. Most BlackBerry users are dependent on that and will be frustrated that it’s not available. Can your VIP live without such a key feature?
- Typing – Most BlackBerry users are heavy typists, from e-mail to instant messages. RIM has spent years optimizing the keyboard experience to maximize tactile feeling and typing speed. Many users of the iPhone complain about typing speed and accuracy issues. A number of articles have noted that speed/accuracy is reduced by 50 percent on non-BlackBerry touchscreens. Can your VIP live with much slower typing?
Now we have to admit, the iPhone, HTC Touch Pro and Samsung Omnia have great multimedia capabilities, such as iTunes and touch screen web browsers. And we all recognize (though VIPs may not) that all these new BlackBerry smartphones have great multimedia capabilities too, and the new BlackBerry Storm brings same great touch screen and form factor so now users can get that feature too… with the added bonus of tactile click.
But these multimedia capabilities aren’t typically the things that VIPs use heavily on a daily basis to do their job. Explain to your VIPs that when using these other devices, they’ll quickly discover that they can’t get the business productivity they were used to with their BlackBerry. They will be frustrated and they will come back. And they will only have wasted time and effort. We’ve had countless customers go through this painful roller-coaster.
The best approach is to either upgrade existing devices or replace them devices with the latest BlackBerry smartphones in the form factor they prefer: Bold, Storm, Perl or even new brand new 9300 Javelin.
In our next installment, we’ll take a mobile IT Professional’s look at the least expensive way to get the latest, greatest capabilities: upgrade the OS and features of your existing smartphones… Click here go to to Part II.
by Mitch Berk
Tags: Best Practices, BlackBerry, Executive, Prevention
