Where does the iphone stand with the business user now?

In one of my older articles, (iPhone and the business user) I had discussed the importance of iPhone's adoption by business users. Now, after a month since the iPhone launch, businesses are still skeptical about iPhone's prospects in business. Thats not all , some CIO's are even going to the extent of dismissing iPhone as a serious business phone. Cade metz of Channel register reports on a discussion with four CIOs from across the spectrum of business : Google, Hasbro, Levi strauss and McKeeson and comes up with a unanymous answer : "iPhone is not for business". That might be a little too early, I think.

iPhone - an idea whose time has come?

I stumbled upon a interesting article from BBC news website about a taiwanese company, HTC. It launched its touch screen phone a month before iPhone was launched with surprisingly similar features (please do play the video in the BBC page). It is only natural to wonder if some of the features were copied from the iPhone or if the iPhone's features were copied from the HTC. Readers might remember my previous post about apple's touch phone prototypes that go back as early as 1984. So, I feel that we should assume that both these developments happened independently.

Whatever be the case, it does seem that touchscreen smart phones and intelligent user interfaces is the direction in which future phones will move in. As Victor hugo put it, "No army on the face of the world can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come".

iPhone -is exclusivity the name of the game?

In United states and the rest of the world, people are crying foul over apple's decision to tie in with AT&T for the iPhone. Whether its the customers who do not want to switch over to AT&T because of their existing contractual obligations or it is the operators who want to contain the alarming churn rates, they say the same thing - "free the iphone". What most people are missing out here is the way apple chooses to position itself in the marketplace.

John Naisbitt, authour of Megatrends and Re-inventing the corporation, says, "With luxury goods, here is a paradox: Exclusivity is the name of the game, and if these goods become common and less costly, they lose their exclusivity - and their market," So, in essense, from a strategy point of view, it is in the best interest of apple to maintain the exclusivity.