Linkedin employees forced to switch from Blackberry to iPhone/Android

[Shlooky]

The days of companies going RIM exclusive are over. The iPhones and Androids are more than capable of handling corporate e-mail, contacts and calendar, you can open Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents and be able to do any task the BB can today with the exception of BBM.
If you have a Galaxy Tab or an iPad even better. BB10 alone will not save RIM, application development and enterprise class apps will.

[Economist101]

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice

Well its more ecosystem (including apps) rather than JUST apps.. Apple products appeal to consumers in a big way.

Obviously they have great appeal, but it's not as though people buy iPads so they can buy an iPad case or an iPod dock. Yes, there's a huge ecosystem, but people are buying iPads for two reasons: they like the device and its services, and they like apps. However, PlayBook users like the PlayBook about as much as iPad users like the iPad, yet last quarter's numbers suggest 100 iPads sold for every PlayBook shipped. If it's not device satisfaction that's holding the PlayBook back (and people here claim it's very satisfying) what's left? Apps, not peripherals, not accessories, but apps.

[Sith_Apprentice]

Apps play a huge role you are absolutely correct. visual aesthetics also do. BlackBerry java based OS isnt pretty, it isnt appealing, it just works. QNX changes that significantly.

[Frank Castle]

Originally Posted by Shlooky

The days of companies going RIM exclusive are over. The iPhones and Androids are more than capable of handling corporate e-mail, contacts and calendar, you can open Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents and be able to do any task the BB can today with the exception of BBM.
If you have a Galaxy Tab or an iPad even better. BB10 alone will not save RIM, application development and enterprise class apps will.

Any task? I guess from a consumer point of view but RIM still has corporate features no other platform has. iOS and Android still lack comparable Outlook support for Tasks, Notes, Contact management, Calendar functionality. PBX intergration is still iffy depending on your back end.

Each company has different needs and for those that only wish to provide mobile voice & email and control the device it's hard to argue with Blackberry's TCO. Now what employees prefer and touting (insert device of choice) is "better" is a matter of perception and intent of usage. Would employess still enjoy an iPhone that cannot use AppStore and the browser is filtered or disabled? Unable to load media onto it?

The mobile market is just larger and fragmented both in company and employee needs as well devices. There is no perfect device for everyone.

[phoreoneone]

oh man. noaa and haliburton also dropped support.

aww rim

those are a lot of phones

[BB9700CA]

Originally Posted by Economist101

That's like an airline saying they've got everything down about flying except landing.

ROFLMAO

Sorry, I could not resist laughing.

[N8ter]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

OMG I'm so sick of hearing this FUD, *ANY* company with 500+ mobile devices is not going to just use EAS, ActiveSync is not a MDM and if it was so fantastic you wouldn't see record grow of other solutions like Good Technology, MobileIron and the other 15 or so MDM's on the market. You have a large enterprise mobile deployment be it corporate liable or BYOD you will want to manage them. EAS merely provides basic controls to secure the device, there is little management. Depending on the device and OS version you have to follow a flow chart of which (if any) policies you can enforce. Not to mention all the API support Apple has extended is not even supported with EAS.

I'd love to see how some of these companies with thousands of devices out there with no management and no central admin team handle that. You could source it all but that has costs. Does Exchange magically run itself now?

We have not saved a ton of cash supporting iOS and now Android. Our Good CAL's are 3X the cost of the BES CAL not the mention BES Express which is free. If you wanted to be dirt cheap run BES Express with the old BES 4.0 cold spare model. You omit to get the full policy support for EAS you need the Enterprise CAL and Exchange 2010. Thats not free.

I get that people want to slash budgets and BYOD is a nice way to do that. Offload hardware onto users as most alreay have a mobile device, lessen your corporate liable costs. It's really a wash. After a year of our BYOD program a number of employees have since gone back to a corporate liable Blackberry. They got burned with a broken mobile device, burned with increased data costs, burned when needing to go international, burned with their device locked down.

You're wrong. I worked for one of the largest entities in their market in the world, with tens of thousands of employees. 2 years ago you needed a blackberry or you were relegated to OWA. Now, they allow anyone with an EAS-compatible phone to connect to the exchange server.

It's not FUD, you're just in denial.

And no, Exchange doesn't manage itself, but neither does BES and it runs on top of Exchange... Exchange is a mail server that has its own policies and push email protocol. You're assuming every business with tons of employees needs those extra 400 policies BES adds. News Flash, they all don't.

BES is redundant at a lot of organizations, and it became ubiquitous during a time when PUSH email was a luxury on mobile devices. That is no longer the case.

Pull your head out of the sand.

[Frank Castle]

Funny I was just at RIM's CIO dinner the other night in NYC, with a number of other fortune 500 companies and various govermant / state agencies and we discussed this. Not one person representing was using only EAS. Whats further funny is everyone wasn't happy with the MDM they were currently using (Mobile Iron, Good Technology, AirWatch etc). RIM has a solid chance with Fusion if it matches these solutions and lowers the cost.

Your confusing the issues with BES's full management of Blackberry 500+ policies and management of a mobile deployment. If your company is able to do that and sleep at night without concerns more power to you. But considering the growth of mobility security and compliance issues I think it's foolish. The thing isn't how many policies a MDM has, it's that you have the OPTION.

Every other CIO at the dinner the other night felt the same way.

[Palmless]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

Every other CIO at the dinner the other night felt the same way.

And that would have been POWERFUL. In 2003.

How many of those CIO's no longer report to the CEO, instead to the CFO or COO? How many were absent, their companies no longer carrying that title?

I agree with you... RIMM has huge mindshare among CIOs. And that was once very important in the mobile market. CIOs are much less important now, and so they have much less influence over mobile decisions. No more "I'm not betting my job on ___" attitudes will limit offerings.

If there is anyone who has yet to read "Does IT Matter" and integrate those lessons, I strongly encourage it before it is too late.

RIMM will learn not to market to the CIO, and possibly recover, or they will target that group and suffer the consequences.

[trelawrence]

Originally Posted by Palmless

And that would have been POWERFUL. In 2003.

How many of those CIO's no longer report to the CEO, instead to the CFO or COO? How many were absent, their companies no longer carrying that title?

I agree with you... RIMM has huge mindshare among CIOs. And that was once very important in the mobile market. CIOs are much less important now, and so they have much less influence over mobile decisions. No more "I'm not betting my job on ___" attitudes will limit offerings.

If there is anyone who has yet to read "Does IT Matter" and integrate those lessons, I strongly encourage it before it is too late.

RIMM will learn not to market to the CIO, and possibly recover, or they will target that group and suffer the consequences.

Well made point.

[auditman]

Originally Posted by Shlooky

The days of companies going RIM exclusive are over. The iPhones and Androids are more than capable of handling corporate e-mail, contacts and calendar, you can open Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents and be able to do any task the BB can today with the exception of BBM.
If you have a Galaxy Tab or an iPad even better. BB10 alone will not save RIM, application development and enterprise class apps will.

users dont realize it's not just the handling of emails and data. all devices do that ios, android and bb. it's the security that the BES provides with bb thats important when the device disappear. with bes you can remotely wipe device and all the users needs to be back in business is get another bb activate it for ent use. all emails and contacts comes back magically.

i guess with the blackberry fusion it will all come together.

[Frank Castle]

Do you have some research on your insight? It would seem there are a lot of companies where a CIO is very much relevant. I forget the "new" world is where users all support themselves, security doesn't matter and technology will have no cost and all just run magically in the cloud. Hopefully all the regulatory bodies all go away as well.

It's funny you have most blogs telling RIM to forget consumers as Apple and Android have them locked up, now they shouldn't bother with corporate market as it's not 2003 anymore and there is no need for BES, security and whatever else RIM has. RIM has huge mindshare as they have a great solution that works for the purporse it was designed. The fact workers want to play Angry birds on 5" screens with 4hr battery life has little correlation other then both are mobile devices.

I hope to be around when there is no more IT and the mess that becomes. Then all the people that spent their careers working off hours, late nights, weekends can kick back and enjoy the chaos.

Originally Posted by Palmless

And that would have been POWERFUL. In 2003.

How many of those CIO's no longer report to the CEO, instead to the CFO or COO? How many were absent, their companies no longer carrying that title?

I agree with you... RIMM has huge mindshare among CIOs. And that was once very important in the mobile market. CIOs are much less important now, and so they have much less influence over mobile decisions. No more "I'm not betting my job on ___" attitudes will limit offerings.

If there is anyone who has yet to read "Does IT Matter" and integrate those lessons, I strongly encourage it before it is too late.

RIMM will learn not to market to the CIO, and possibly recover, or they will target that group and suffer the consequences.

[Economist101]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

Do you have some research on your insight? It would seem there are a lot of companies where a CIO is very much relevant.

I think you misunderstood his primary point, which was that CIO "mindshare" is no longer a prime indicator of market success. CIOs may be very relevant in business, but that hasnt helped RIM maintain its market position. Most current evidence suggests that RIM is still the top dog in enterprise, yet seems to be struggling in other areas.

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

It's funny you have most blogs telling RIM to forget consumers as Apple and Android have them locked up, now they shouldn't bother with corporate market as it's not 2003 anymore and there is no need for BES, security and whatever else RIM has.

Who cares what blogs think RIM should do? And if you do, why do you?

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

RIM has huge mindshare as they have a great solution that works for the purporse it was designed.

The problem is that making a great product is meaningless if you can't sell it, which is why RIM is losing ground. They make a fine product, but if people don't buy, you really don't have anything to fall back on.

[jgomez5710]

You can do this for ios or android also. As long as the phone is using exchange which ios and android does, our admin/it dept can remotely wipe. Actually, I, myself as the end user can also remotely wipe using the feature through owa.

Originally Posted by auditman

users dont realize it's not just the handling of emails and data. all devices do that ios, android and bb. it's the security that the BES provides with bb thats important when the device disappear. with bes you can remotely wipe device and all the users needs to be back in business is get another bb activate it for ent use. all emails and contacts comes back magically.

i guess with the blackberry fusion it will all come together.

[Palmless]

Originally Posted by jgomez5710

You can do this for ios or android also. As long as the phone is using exchange which ios and android does, our admin/it dept can remotely wipe. Actually, I, myself as the end user can also remotely wipe using the feature through owa.

And non-Exchange iOS users can do it with no admin intervention. As well as track it through Find my iPhone.

Still, it will be falsely trumpeted as a RIMM-exclusive for years.