One Company's Switch from BlackBerry to iPhone: New OS is Key
Apple's upcoming mobile OS offers a lot for enterprises, but adoption takes time. Here's a look inside Varian Medical's ongoing efforts to deploy iPhones around the world.
CIO — During the next few months, Varian Medical's Matt Morse plans to live out of a suitcase, venturing around the world for the sole purpose of ushering the iPhone (and maybe the iPad) into his enterprise. He'll spend time developing a strategy for the iPhone that fits into his company's existing IT infrastructure and meets security and budget requirements, followed by a series of test cases.
If all goes well, sometime next year he'll begin to deploy the iPhone and replace the BlackBerry for field service workers. "There are so many facets to look at in a new platform," says Morse, senior IT admin at Varian Medical, a manufacturer of medical devices and software for hospitals and clinics in 60 countries. "I think the discovery phase and proof of concept will take at least six months."
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iOS 4, formerly known as iPhone OS 4.0, earlier this year, CIOs and tech analysts cheered iOS 4's deep enterprise support. iOS 4 promised wireless distribution of in-house apps, multitasking, app and email data protection, mobile device management upgrades, and support for SSL VPN via apps from Juniper and Cisco, among other features.
But iOS 4's expected release to the general public this summer won't open the enterprise floodgates for the iPhone right away. Rather, it will only signal the beginning of the iPhone's long march into the corporate world. For techies like Morse, much work still needs to be done.
The Security Equation Changes
For the past five years, Varian employees have carried BlackBerrys to help them do their jobs. Varian's BlackBerry users are on the frontlines in both sales and field service, tapping into a Microsoft Exchange collaboration messaging system with hooks into SharePoint, Office Communicator and VoIP.
Varian developed an app called MSO, or mobile services online, that lets BlackBerry field technicians securely connect to SAP on the backend. With MSO, they can handle customer-service tickets without having to fire up a laptop. They can look up schedules, dispatch orders, and allocate resources. MSO's end result: response times within 10 minutes.
When the iPhone debuted three years ago, Varian executives warmed to the beautiful interface. Every year, more and more employees asked for an iPhone, Morse says. With the release of the iPhone 3G, Morse and his team had to officially support it. Today, one out of three mobile devices at Varian is an iPhone.
But none of the approximately 1,600 field technicians around the world are allowed to turn in their BlackBerries for iPhones—at least, not yet.
