Will the salesman change from BlackBerry to iPhone?

First there was the Palm Pilot: a PDA – storing data electronically and taking it with you.
Then there was the BlackBerry adding mobile phone and email functionality to the PDA.
Now there is the iPhone, bringing the Internet into your pocket

iPhone: changing from consumer to business:

BlackBerry is widely used by sales people and other business people often on the road. It took them years to sell a few millions. Whereas the iPhone was initially marketed as a consumer device, almost instantly getting the million mark.

The great user interface and the virtual buttons of the iPhone gave it a consumer feeling, and the small buttons of the BlackBerry are more business-like.

They needed consumers for 2 reasons:
- The numbers of devices sold is important in order to get the production costs low and preferably in a short time span. Hardware is a dangerous game as time and inventories work against you.
- Consumers do innovate faster than businesses.
The gamble Apple took has been successful: they have reached a sufficient level of production over a short time span allowing now to focus on business people at a competitive price.

Until now the iPhone hasn’t had much business uptake by lacking synchronization with the widely used Microsoft Exchange (push email), and other applications (calendar, contacts). Support for Microsoft Exchange is announced and there is a Software Development Kit (SDK) for applications.

Once email was sufficient, now Internet is required

BlackBerry is successful because of the mobile email and synchronisation – still requiring a specific server or a service from the operator for the email push.
On the iPhone the Internet looks like we know it, and makes the primitive browser on the BlackBerry look and feel from another era.
iPhone is 100% Internet, thus all websites and web services are available.

Email:
As corporate email is more and more available as a web mail service, what’s the point of installing the push server?. Moreover sales people can access their private web mail too – which is a big advantage.

CRM and other web services:
Any web service should be available on the iPhone, thus also the CRM of the company.

Instant Messaging:
Instead of calling your PA, one could use instant messaging instead.

Glasses – the hidden convenience factor?

There is one big advantage of the iPhone over the BlackBerry: you don’t need glasses.
People hate to put on their reading glasses in public or they need to get them out of their briefcase or jacket: hindering use of a BlackBerry. The buttons of the keyboard and the characters on the screen of the BlackBerry require many people to use their glasses.
Whereas with the iPhone you just enlarge the image, so nobody knows you need glasses.

What is missing?

The Palm Pilot could be connected to a keyboard (fold out or roll out), giving the ease of fast typing.

The winning concept:

In the longer run the iPhone-concept will win due the user interface, the Internet access and the availability of web services beyond the packaged applications in the BlackBerry and other smart PDA phones.
Whether it will be iPhone, a Samsung or a Nokia copy, only time will tell.
Samsung and Nokia could provide better phone communications quality or lower pricing.
Hybrid models with a slide out keyboard will have their market too like the LG Voyager.

However Apple has not only the iPhone in the game, but also the iPod Touch allowing for Internet browsing over Wifi at a much lover purchase price and much lower running costs (no expensive operator contract).
As Wifi is available in many public spaces (at affordable cost or even free), this might be the cheaper: get an iPod Touch for your browsing and data communications and a standard mobile phone for verbal and texting (sms) communication.

The iPod lacks the verbal communications, but using Skype can change this (requires to add on a microphone) allowing you to call in a Wifi zone.

Changes for sales people:

Previously salespeople could only communicate over the mobile phone, receive and send email, whereas now they can have all of the Internet information available without the need to carry a portable and launch and wait for Windows.
Additionally the web services used by the company are available to the salesman on the road. Including your private web mail (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) and even Instant Messaging.

Will it be the all-in-one concept or the mobile phone + iPod Touch that will change the way sales will work? The increase in productivity and the convenience will decide.
Could we imagine talking into the mobile phone, while surfing on the Internet on an iPod Touch for information?
If the concept proves to get you more leads and sales, then the iPhone concept will be adopted relatively fast in business.

Remember:
It is not always the best engineered solution that wins (like Betamax from Sony) as many different factors influence the decisions of the buyers.