iPhone gaining ground in enterprise... at BlackBerry's expense

By the end of the year it's expected that iPhone shipment to enterprise will outstrip those of traditional leader, BlackBerry. While BlackBerry still has the largest install base in the enterprise, more often than not, companies are now ordering iPhones for their employees. As this happens, iPhone marketshare in enterprise will continue to grow. A primary driver of this change is that businesses are increasingly embracing the practice of BYOD, or “Bring Your Own Device”. Because of this, employees are bringing the devices that they buy on their own, and that’s an iPhone (or Android). John Paczkowski reports for All Things D:

“While corporate customers will continue to offer Blackberry as a corporate-liable device, they are also now much more open to offering iOS as well, and giving end users a choice of devices,” IDC Mobile Enterprise Program Manager Stacy Crook told AllThingsD. “From a BYOD standpoint, the BlackBerrys will also continue to easily make the approved device list, but again, most companies with a BYOD strategy will allow for iOS and, increasingly, Android is starting to make more of those lists, as well. In either of these scenarios, it boils down to end-user choice, so the end users have to want to choose the BlackBerry device over the others.”

That's good new for Apple, who keeps touting not only growing Fortune and Global 500 adoption for the iPhone, but unprecedented adoption rates for the iPad as well. BYOD is definitely a part of this. Employees are regular users for the most part, and iPhones and Android devices are going to appeal to them just as much as they do to the rest of the phone-buying public.

However, we've also seen entire companies swing towards iOS (and Android), most recently Yahoo!, so iOS could well see gains from the top down as well as bottom up.

BlackBerry 10 looks like it will finally be more modern OS, and could help slow the bleeding, or even lead to a resurgence for BlackBerry, but with iOS and Android already well-established with users, they'll have a hard road in front of them if they want to regain the ground they’ve lost.

In the meantime, it continues to be onwards and upwards for iOS in the enterprise.

Source: All Things D