Trends Report

The iPhone Is Not Meant For Enterprises

The Top 10 Reasons Why We Recommend That IT Not Support It

December 12th, 2007
Benjamin Gray, null
Benjamin Gray
With contributors:
Chris Silva , Rachel Dines , Robert Whiteley III

Summary

A high volume of IT operations professionals have reached out to Forrester over the past few weeks asking if Apple's iPhone should be on their list of internally supported devices. Not surprisingly, they're being challenged by their users to support the iPhone so employees can have their corporate email on the same device that allows them to listen to their favorite tunes and watch the hottest YouTube clips. Unfortunately, there are some limitations with the first generation of the iPhone that should prevent it from being added to enterprises' white list. Here's a top 10 list of reasons why Forrester recommends that IT not support the iPhone and why we don't consider it an enterprise-class mobile device. Despite this, Forrester predicts that the iPhone will find its way into many enterprise environments — if it hasn't already — because C-level executives are buying them and expecting support from IT. It's only a matter of time before the iPhone filters down the corporate pyramid, and IT should have a strategy to handle these requests.

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