Brief overview of cell phones for business use

The world has changed; the former number-one cell-phone-for-business vendor was Research In Motion (RIM), makers of Blackberry. However, RIM has stumbled hard and has lost significant market share to Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Droid.

Current status by vendor:

RIM’s Blackberry has been struggling; they recently had a significant software glitch and their technology has not kept up with industry leaders Apple and Google.  Feedback:

• Still a huge installed base, but it is an older interface that has not kept up with changes.
• Requires separate, Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) to integrate with Microsoft Exchange.

Apple recently released the iPhone4s, which sold out promptly.  Feedback:

• iPhone is designed for usability.
• iPhone has a huge store of applications.
• iPhones are relatively more expensive.
• iPhone integrates into Microsoft Exchange via ActiveSync.

Google released a newer phone versions of its Motorola-based, 4G phone, the Droid Bionic and the Droid Razr, which have also been extremely popular.  Google has multiple manufacturers using the Droid operating system in their phones and it is probably number 2 in worldwide cellphone sales behind Apple.  Feedback:

• Droid phones are less expensive than the iPhone.
• Droid also has a large store of applications; since it is a newer phone, these applications might not be as polished as iPhone applications.
• Droid doesn’t have the same level of integration as iPhone and is considered by many to be less user-friendly than the iPhone.
• Droid integrates into Microsoft Exchange via ActiveSync.

Visit http://reviews.cnet.com/2722-6452_7-1302.html for a recent review of the Droid Bionic versus the Apple iPhone4s is at.  In this review, the editors rated the iPhone4s slightly higher than the Droid Bionic by a combined score of 4.5 (out of 5) for the iPhone4s versus 4.4 (out of 5) for the Droid Bionic.