Five Reasons the iPhone Won’t Infiltrate Your Business

Sure Apple's latest innovation is going to be popular. But here are reasons why it won't be an important business tool.

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Lastly, the iPhone can't edit Microsoft Office documents and there are issues with Windows Outlook or Lotus Notes e-mail applications, which the iPhone doesn’t support right now. (But, really, who even uses those anymore?)

3. Security Issues (and that Glass Touch Screen!)
There’s been a lot made of security vulnerabilities and the fact that the iPhone is just another new and untested device that falls in a long line of mobile devices users would like to hook into CIOs’ networks. In a recent Computerworld article, Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, called the iPhone "a nightmare for security teams. What I'm afraid of is that enterprises are going to get pressure from, say, sales, to bring this in. And even if it's not approved, people will try to connect it to their corporate networks. It has no place in the enterprise."

According to the article, Storms’ issue with the iPhone is the lack of a security management tool that could enforce enterprise policies about which devices connect to the network. "There are no central management tools. If there was a product that integrated with [Mac] OS X Server, it would be a totally different story," said Storms in the article. "Apple has been quiet about enterprise security, so we have to expect and plan for the worst."

And what about that glass touch screen? Indeed, the iPhone is beautiful, like a delicate piece of china. However, we all know what happens to a delicate piece of china when you drop it. As a recent report from CurrentAnalysis points out, "A hardened glass screen may be durable—Motorola is also using glass on its RAZR2 product—but it sure sounds like something that ought to crack. The commentary on gadget enthusiast sites is already replete with jeering critics cheering the expected rash of smashed screens. Sure, most of these people aren't materials scientists—some are probably 12 years old—but ‘glass breaks’ is a message Apple will have to overcome." (To see a video spoof as an example of the potential "fingerprint smudge problem, go here.)

4. Enterprises Aren’t Huge Fans of Multimedia Devices—Yet
Although this trend is starting to change, CIOs and security chiefs are still hesitant to allow mobile devices that have these newer capabilities on the network (or even in the building: the digital camera feature is Exhibit A). So just how important is it that a company pay for its sales staff have MP3 or video players on their mobile devices?

iPhone

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