back to article Big biz BlackBerry refuseniks adopt Apple over Android

Smartphone owners working for big business are activating far more iOS devices than they are Android ones - at least those who employed by firms using Good Technology's corporate email system are. Good this week revealed iPhone 4 activations - the process of tying a phone or tablet to Good's managed push email, calendar and …

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  1. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Linux

    Huh?

    We run Good and the ratio for us is 4:2 Android vs. iPhone. I know of two other companies locally that has a higher Android ratio with tablets. Something is screwy with these numbers.

    1. jai

      i think more likely something is screwy with your sample selection of the corporate world. you've taken a sample of 3 companies and come to a conclusion. Good have taken a sample of ALL their customers, and come to a different conclusion. I know who's data I have more faith in a better representative of the whole picture.

      1. NoneSuch Silver badge

        So we are the only three companies running Android tabs on Good servers globally?

        <sarcasm>

        Gee, that makes perfect sense.

        </sarcasm>

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I know, right?

          Like, in my house, there are three Apple computers and only one Windows computer. So based on that anyone who claims that in the world as a whole Windows computers significantly outnumber Apple computers is obviously an idiot.

  2. dotdavid

    Meanwhile, in downtime Corporateville...

    EXEC: SIMMONS! GET IN HERE!

    IT TECH: Yessir?

    EXEC: Ah Simmons...

    IT TECH: Actually it's Simon sir...

    EXEC: ...my daughter bought me this phone. It has a fruit on the back, some kind of designer I think, very trendy - my daughter has impeccable taste. Anyway, I want to be able to check my emails on it

    IT TECH: That's an iPhone sir, we only support Blackberr...

    EXEC: Well now we support these things too! Get on it.

    IT TECH: Er, yes sir. Should we look into supporting Android handsets too?

    EXEC: What handsets? Robots? Don't be stupid Simmons. Now you'll have to excuse me, I have a very important meeting in ten minutes.

    IT TECH: *Sigh*

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      To be honest Apple's marketing is so good that they just come and ask for the latest iDevice.

      Luckily they're actually perfectly good at the tasks they are required for albeit a bit of a swine to manage.

  3. James 51

    Why aren't Blackberry handsets included in the graph?

    1. Yet Another Commentard

      At a guess because the Good application is not required for Blackberries.

      1. teapot9999
        Thumb Up

        Good not required for iPhone

        Good is not required for iPhone - it supported Exchange out of the box and works with our corporate mail system

  4. spencer

    Numbers

    it'd be interesting to see the actual numbers behind the percentages.

    1. Ascompltd
      WTF?

      percentage of what

      this is such a common issue with advertising generated charts I find what is it a percentage of from the chart it could be people who only eat bananas.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "We run Good and the ratio for us is 4:2 Android vs. iPhone"

    Like you matter to the stats <lol>

    There are probably other companies with more than 6 devices - shock maybe 6 iPhones - but as a whole the picture is clear.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Why aren't Blackberry handsets included in the graph?"

    Did someone actually ask that...

    1. James 51
      Linux

      Yes, I'd like to see the number of blackberry handsets that were attached to networks just for the sake of comparison. The iphone numbers look impressive but if there are as ten times as many blackberrys then it looks more like distorting the numbers to promote the iphone.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "it'd be interesting to see the actual numbers behind the percentages."

    Why - the numbers are basically irrelevant as long as it's a reasonable sample size (not just 6) - obviously the bigger the number the more accurate it is but it's not as if we are splitting hairs over 1-2% here.

    1. spencer

      splitting hairs

      Yes I'm sure the sample size is not 6 but how can you possibly get an idea of the volumes involved without either a bar chart showing the competition (e.g blackberry) for comparison or just showing the numbers?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Yes, I'd like to see the number of blackberry handsets that were attached to networks just for the sake of comparison. The iphone numbers look impressive but if there are as ten times as many blackberrys then it looks more like distorting the numbers to promote the iPhone."

    You just don't get it - this is not about Blackberries as they would not use the service!! It is demonstrating how many IOS devices were activated compared to Android devices - basically saying that business / corporates are going Apple even more than regular consumers.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "......not reflected in the broader consumer market."

    Hardly surprising! These business types are getting their iphone paid for by their employer, in the mistaken belief that the iPhone gives them some form of status.

    WRONG!

    The only impression you'll give is that you’re unable to grasp anything other than 'easy'. After all iOS is as easy as fisher price.

    (even Woz, its creator, reckons it's pants!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      that's some revisionism...

      Woz has had nothing to do with iOS at all.

    2. Gordon 10
      FAIL

      WRONG

      I'll think you'll find that a big percentage of Good activations are actually personal handsets being used for work.

      The whole point of rolling out Good is that it creates a secure wipeable container on the iphone to manage your workstuff in without compromising corporate security.

    3. adam roberts
      FAIL

      Think it's time someone checked Woz's facebook page, he did stated he was quoted out of content and the truth twisted to suit the reporters agenda.

      What he did state was that he liked some parts of Android, the built in navigation (which will come to iOS anyway after it's out of beta, google have already stated this) and ability to fiddle around more with it, which you can do via jailbreaking. Not hardly surprising since he is an engineer, but as a day to day device, he using his iPhone.

      Android has always felt like it's in beta to me (ICS is an brilliant improvement) but it is still overly complex for the most simple of tasks at times and it's crashes a lot more than iOS, what it is with these elitist android users that think you have to confuse the general population and have unnecessary complexity built in, otherwise it's not worth using. Will you be unhappy using ICS because it's easier to use than gingerbread?

      Most business users what to get on with the job, not waste time fiddling. I like both platforms but iOS will remain my phone of choice, until it does everything my iPhone can. Android's openness only adds a few extra features, I find the quality of the apps on iOS adds more features that could be gained by being 'open'.

  10. NoneSuch Silver badge
    FAIL

    http://www.good.com/news/articles.php

    A list of Articles from the Good web site covering the last couple of years. Note that in almost every article iOS is touted above all else regardless of what actual real world activations are. Interesting how in the same announcement in Jan 2011 Windows Mobile accounts for 5% of activations in their graph, yet in the 2012 one they are absent completely. The WinPhone footprint did increase slightly in 2011 so where are they in the new graph?

    These numbers cannot be considered as objective.

    This article from the Reg in 20 October uses Good supplied figures. See any discrepancies???

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/20/good_figures/

    1. Gordon 10
      FAIL

      Or alternatively

      Win Mob has declined to under the radar.

      Win Pho has yet to hit the radar.

      I bet they are seperate categories.

      Paranoid much?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Woz did not create the iPhone.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Hardly surprising! These business types are getting their iphone paid for by their employer, in the mistaken belief that the iPhone gives them some form of status."

    Bitter - get a job then?

    Many people pick an iPhone for reasons other than status. Some people would not pick an Android as it runs Google's software - it's about choice as well.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "A list of Articles from the Good web site covering the last couple of years. Note that in almost every article iOS is touted above all else regardless of what actual real world activations are."

    Maybe it's also that home users are more cost conscious so buy cheaper handsets (often Android) but would not need Good's service and that business users do.

    All they are saying is that a LOT more IOS devices signed up for their service - they are not saying Android is cr@p - but Androidies are very sensitive...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The only impression you'll give is that you’re unable to grasp anything other than 'easy'. After all iOS is as easy as fisher price."

    Does making a more difficult phone OS make it better? Most people want a device to be easy to use - but if you like driving around in reverse with the handbrake on - you do it. A lot of techies on here seem to lose sight of what 'other' people want - you may want a device that you can re-rom but 95%+ of people do not.

  15. The other JJ
    Thumb Down

    Non sequitur

    This is the second Reg article this week that seems to infer something about device usage from the ratio of activations - and it's not even clear here whether activations include new handsets on existing accounts. We know that many iPhone users upgrade every time a new device comes out whether the old one is still adequate or not whereas 'droid users don't (or they'd be upgrading every week). Perhaps the higher proportion of iPhone activations is simply because iPhone users lose or break theirs more often (and empirical evidence supports that).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Activations schmactivations

      I seem to remember mass android ejaculations when Rubin mention how many hundred thousand android devices were being activated each day. So no it's the turn of the iOS brethren to shoot their collective loads...

      That said, you really have to wonder about the state of modern society: here we are losing sleep and raising our blood pressure over pieces of hardware. :))

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Perhaps the higher proportion of iPhone activations is simply because iPhone users lose or break theirs more often (and empirical evidence supports that)."

    Did you actually look at the graph - if you were right iPhone users would be losing or breaking their devices weekly. There is a massive difference and the most likely conclusion (as stated) is that business users have a need for this service (most personal users would not) and of those users who need the Good service the VAST majority are using iPhones / other IOS devices.

  17. Magnus_Pym

    How expensive is 'good'

    Push email on a smart phone is not that special these days. Perhaps more companies willing to let their employees choose iPhones are less cost conscious and more likely to choose an expensive push email solution.

    1. Gordon 10
      FAIL

      Or perhaps they are more cost conscious and recalling corporate BB's and issuing Good onto personal iPhones and maybe allowing them to expense the data usage?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hope they researched before they bought

    I just have to hope all these organisations deploying GfE bothered to do their research first to find out how secure it really is. Thomas Cannon did some work under a project entitled Android Reversing ( http://thomascannon.net/projects/android-reversing/ ) where he demonstrates the "security" of GfE on Android.

  19. Paul 135
    WTF?

    Don't understand why BlackBerry or iPhone are even popular

    ... A landscape QWERTY Android device pwns them both (and interestingly none are on the list). The Xperia Pro, for example, is excellent.

  20. Keep Refrigerated
    Paris Hilton

    Mitigating Factors?

    I'd be interested to see some geographical data vs activations. I notice Good is a US based company.

    For businesses - particularly those who travel, a GSM capable phone is essential and many workers will buy a cheap local sim to swap into their phones when abroad. The US only has 2 networks providing GSM capable phones (e.g. coming with data roaming contracts), the rest are limited CDMA and completely useless in most parts of the world.

    I've been looking for a GSM Android phone and find that many of the high end one's end up being released CDMA only to specific networks in the US. Could it be that due to the iPhone's GSM capabilities and it's availability with both GSM and CDMA providers have an impact on those results at all?

  21. CreativTech
    Big Brother

    It's about corporate friendliness

    As someone who recently agonized over the selection of tablets for our office, it came down to which was easier to implement. While I'm a big fan of Android, it's a PITA to implement in a corporate environment, at least in small-scale. If I want to lock down an Android device so that my users don't go accidentally giving away the farm, I have to get some third-party MDM solution. But with the iPad, I just download the free iPhone Configuration Utility and <clickety-click> it's ready to go, and I can get back to putting out fires.

  22. TangD
    FAIL

    Or it could be...

    That they don't allow Android on Good. We don't. Where I work if you have a blackberry you can get rid of it and instead be allowed to access your stuff via Good. At your own cost, no more subsidies, so it saves a lot of money. Android honestly is not ready for the big time and good can't change the fact that it's not secure enough as a platform for us (yet?). Not my opinion but that of our security team who apparently have made a career of such stuff.

  23. veskebjorn

    Corporate love for iOS grows in "walled garden"

    If a corporate IT department sticks with currently-available Apple products they need support only three phone and two tablet models, all of which can run the latest version of iOS. The number of comparable Android devices seems to be in excess of one hundred. Many currently available Android devices "offer" one of two or three obsolete versions of the OS, and every manufacturer customizes the OS for each hardware configuration and/or each mobile phone company. Support for Apple products is relatively simple; support for Android products could be a nightmare.

    Apple products can be easily locked down by IT departments; Android products not so easily.

    When Apple revises iOS, all devices can be updated at the same time. Android updates, which are supplied by device manufacturers and/or mobile phone companies, can never be simultaneous. Further, it appears that a goodly number of Android suppliers have little or no interest in updating any of their devices.

    Apple's "walled garden" of apps serves two important corporate purposes. 1.) The "curation" of apps and the fact that they are available only directly from Apple reduces the likelihood of malicious software. 2.) iOS apps offer little scope for network tampering or data theft or porn (other than "content") or other activities that might damage corporate interests.

    As someone whose family's computers run two flavors of Windows and two of Linux, I am clearly not a fanboi of Apple products. Nonetheless, I have long thought that Apple's tight-fisted control of iOS was a deliberate and wise effort to win corporate sales. The figures cited in this article seem to support my speculation.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As veskebjorn said - for corporates they look at the cost of purchase and often more expensively support - Apple products are far less expensive to support as they work the same and the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4s all run the same version of Lion - whereas 3 different Android handsets could run 3 different versions of Android.

    More models / manufacturers makes warranty issues, spares and general support far more difficult and time consuming = expensive.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So looks like Apple have pretty much sewn it up for business (certainly corporate) tablet usage, they have the majority of home / personal use and now they are going after schools. Just need some apps for senior citizens and you have it - cradle to grave.

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