iPhone hacking: Lessons from the front line
At last month's Gartner Wireless and Mobile Summit, the iPhone was the elephant in the room -- an enormous IT challenge that's here to stay, no matter how hard enterprises try to ignore it.
In his annual update on mobile devices, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney described the iPhone as a consumer-class mobile device with increasingly universal enterprise impact. Apple Mac OS X smartphone sales overtook Windows Mobile in 3Q08. At 13% and climbing, the iPhone is now rapidly approaching RIM's BlackBerry marketshare.
Nonetheless, Dulaney expects Apple to continue putting the consumer first, enterprise second. Apple isn't particularly accustomed to working with (or catering to) enterprises, he said. Moreover, the iPhone's SDK goes only so far when it comes to supporting complex business applications -- especially those that require background processing. "We expect the iPhone OS to become slightly more open," he said. "But it will never be truly enterprise-oriented."
