Will the iPhone force Apple to change course?

If you say your product is “enterprise-ready” within earshot of anybody who works for InfoWorld, you’d better be able to prove it. So when Apple claims “IT professionals” will be able to seamlessly integrate the iPhone into their enterprise environments, a great many questions need to be answered.

[ For more on the iPhone in business, see “IT’s guide to the iPhone.” ]

The fact is, Apple, at least up until now, has focused on delivering well-designed products that are basically self-service. Let’s start with that premise.

The problem as I see it is this: Apple has been, in essence, a “unified experience” company (controlling the hardware and user experience with its own UI, operating system and support software) pushing out products that are basically plug-and-play within the Apple environment.

The enterprise is about applications; Apple is not

I don’t think anyone can claim that Apple is an applications company.

But the iPhone presents a new challenge for Apple, in that it will require the company to provide mobile applications support. When that happens, a whole new set of services will be required of Apple.

For example, as much as those in IT complain about the high cost of maintenance and support from the likes of Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, and IBM — and I’ve heard those complaints firsthand — the truth is, IT couldn’t live without those companies’ supports services.

These companies could probably give away their software and still maintain a healthy profit thanks to maintenance contracts rather than acquiring new licenses. Oracle’s acquisitions of PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel and so on had a lot to do with that calculation of revenue from maintenance and support contracts.

So now we come to Apple. It delivers products that usually deliver a great user experience and set a high design bar for integrated technology systems.

What it is not is an applications software company with a huge network of system integrators, consultants, and VARs, nor does it have a homegrown network able to support a huge enterprise-level customer base.

And let’s face it, if enterprise companies buy computers in the hundreds at a time, given the right product, these companies may buy handsets by the thousands.

Making it even more difficult is the fact that even hardware-only companies are now also required to beef up their services. Witness Dell. A few years ago, Dell survived on sending boxes out to the enterprise. But over the past few years, as PCs and servers have become commodities, Dell was forced to look to services to keep investors happy.

My guess is this is the reason why Hewlett-Packard finally surpassed Dell in sales. Once PCs became a commodity, it was HP that had a very long history of support services.

Application software is even more demanding. The major software companies typically have anywhere from three to four support people for every salesperson at the company.

Backing the iPhone’s business claims

Yes, the next iPhone OS revision is promised to include a great many enterprise features such as built-in Cisco IPsec VPN and Microsoft Exchange support, as well as remote data wipe and push e-mail, calendar and contacts.

But is the iPhone a consumer product that adds a few enterprise features, or is it a truly enterprise product that can be supported by an ecosystem of service providers? Because that is what it will need to survive in the enterprise.

Is Apple prepared on a huge scale to help its new enterprise customers integrate the iPhone with their existing infrastructure? Will the device be able to extract and process data from the back end? That’s certainly not an application you should expect to see sold through the iTunes store, Apple’s current venue.

Or does Apple intend to leave that type of support to AT&T, a telecommunications giant that is not exactly comfortable in dealing with the high-tech needs of the enterprise, either?

And then there’s the nitty-gritty:

Can Apple build a consumer product that satisfies the needs of companies that want to prohibit their employees from downloading YouTube videos on the phone?

Can users multitask on the iPhone? Will programs run in the background or retain state when the iPhone rings?

Can IT do more than remotely wipe all data from an iPhone? What about blocking use of Bluetooth radio?

At the moment, the answers to these questions are no, the iPhone cannot control these components, it does not multitask, nor does it retain state.

Of course, these are issues that can probably be resolved over time, perhaps with the next SDK.

The bigger issue, however, is whether Apple will develop the necessary business model to back up its new business claims. Is it prepared to invest the time and money in becoming an enterprise-level company that understands the needs of large companies and meets those needs head on?

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• Special report: IT’s guide to the iPhone

• Apple iPhone SDK upends mobile market

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• iPhone SDK exceeds developer expectations

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• Sun: We’ll put Java on the iPhone

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• How to make the (new) iPhone work at work

  Apple’s new SDK and iPhone updates should make it even easier to add the popular device to your enterprise. Here’s what you need to know.