Standard Chartered, a big bank in the U.K., is reportedly replacing BlackBerries with Apple’s iPhone.
According to Reuters, the bank is currently in the process of giving its BlackBerry users an option to switch to the iPhone. The bank will still pick up the tab. Reuters didn’t have a lot of details about the swap.
Overall, these swaps are rare enough for Research in Motion, king of the enterprise with its Blac
kBerry, to barely notice. However, Apple does conduct guerilla operations in the enterprise.
For instance, I know of an Apple enterprise sales guy not far from where I live. He targets law firms and apparently wins a decent bit of converts. I was a bit surprised since enterprise sales and Apple are two themes that rarely go together.
Apple has a site focused on business and the iPhone and has a few case studies, but doesn’t generally make a lot of fuss about the enterprise.
Indeed, this Apple enterprise sales guy is responsible for basically everything east of the Mississippi. In other words, Apple isn’t forming an enterprise sales army or anything.
But you have to wonder what would happen if Apple really did form an enterprise army. My hunch is that it could do a lot of damage—especially in companies where employees are toting iPhones anyway. If Apple really wanted to make a run it probably could land a few more Standard Chartered swaps. There appears to be a lot of low hanging financial fruit Apple could pluck.
Related: Bits from Apple’s iPhone deployment guide for the enterprise
