Is the iPhone Boom a Business Boon?

We all know how the iPhone frenzy has grabbed popular imagination since it was first announced in January of 2007. With its cool feature set, slick appearance, powerful computing capabilities, beautiful display and intuitive touch navigation, this poster boy of the mobile generation has captured the imagination of gizmo freaks and techphobics alike. To get some measure of iPhone’s success, one only needs refer to Tim Cook’s (Apple’s COO) recent statement at a conference - he said that Apple had "really good confidence" the company would hit 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008.

Considering the vast proliferation of iPhones in such a short span, it is natural that all those who own an iPhone would want to extend its use to business as well. And it is no joy carrying around a Blackberry and iPhone in one pocket. All that does is exert extra downward pressure on the belt. It is no wonder then that iPhone’s usability in a business context is a raging debate nowadays. The fact remains, however, that present and future end users of the iPhone see it is as something they want to use for business.

The Bad News

Unfortunately for corporates, the iPhone was created mainly for the meatier consumer market, and never really meant to be a business tool.

Mainly a PIM – The iPhone mainly has PIM (personal information manager) capabilities (email, contacts, calendars, calendars, and notes) and is not meant to be used for team collaboration, which requires the ability to share and work together on information.

Sorry Third Party Developers – The iPhone runs on a custom-built operating system called the “iPhone OS”, and at this point does not allow third party applications to be built & installed on its native OS. Users are restricted to applications prebuilt into the system (mail, SMS, calendar, photos, etc). This means no special business-centric applications could be created to make use of iPhone’s computing & display capabilities and "internet-ability".

No Exchange Support - The gravest ommission was a lack of support for MS Exchange, which meant that users could not view even the most most elementary business information - business mail, contacts, tasks, and calendars, on their iPhones, let alone advanced collaboration. The only way to achieve this was complicated and unreliable workarounds.

The Good News

Hurray for Web 2.0 - The good news is that they allowed a small window through which an elephant could be pushed. Soon after its launch, Apple announced that it would allow third party web applications supporting Web 2.0 standards to run on the iPhone through its rich Safari browser. This effectively meant that the iPhone could be part of the Web 2.0 revolution and access all the rich applications therein.

The Safari Browser – iPhone's web browser, Safari, is a full web browser with the works. It is light years ahead of the custom made web browsers of traditional corporate handhelds like Palm’s Blazer browser, Blackberry's browser, etc. It is not just comparable to a desktop browser; it is a desktop browser. This allows the iPhone to ride high on the current Web 2.0 wave, rather than just being a bystander.

"Internet-ability" - The iPhone allows internet access through wi-fi or wide area EDGE networks. One important prerequisite for a mobile device to be an effective remote collaboration tool is the willingness and comfort level of users to use the device for web access. Thanks to the large display and Safari browser, the iPhone has been a huge success as a device for web access. The iPhone increased the average wireless data usage as much as 30 times higher than on other phones.

Apple finally awakens from its slumber – Only lately has Apple awoken to the previously ignored aspect of business usage. This was largely caused by the hue and cry raised by the media and users over its frustrating lack of business friendliness. Even as I write, there is news of iPhone finally offering Exchange support, and an iPhone SDK (software development kit), which will allow programmers to develop applications specifically to be installed on the iPhone.

These new developments, however, are not just in their infancy, but at a fetal stage. It will be some time before these new applications find their feet and truly provide trouble-free functionality to businesses.

Exchange support at this time is issue-riddled and works only for companies that support Exchange 2007 or Direct Push on Exchange 2003. Moreover, this and the launch of installed applications for iPhone won't take place until a firmware update slated for June 2008.

HyperOffice to the Rescue

Among the first companies to recognize the tremendous opportunity presented by the iPhone for rich business applications was HyperOffice. Already considerably experienced in the web-based business collaboration domain, we developed an iPhone specific version of our popular product.

This allowed business users to use almost the entire feature set of HyperOffice right from their iPhones. Rather than an isolated personal information manager, HyperOffice allowed the iPhone to be used as a dynamic collaboration tool through which users could access their company intranet, share contacts and calendars, plan projects, share and edit documents, schedule meetings, and much more.

We also realized early on that a major pain point for users looking to use the iPhone for business was a lack of Exchange support. HyperOffice allows users to get past this hurdle easily by acting as a bridge between Exchange and the iPhone. It allows users to receive information directly from Exchange, or access Outlook information (mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks) right on the iPhone, with or without Exchange. No matter where users access mail and other information – Outlook, iPhone’s email client or on any other web device, information is automatically synched. Users always get up-to-the-minute information.