Five reasons why iPad and iPhone are THE choices for BYOD
Nothing tells a story quite like numbers do. Especially if those numbers originate from a disinterested third party research firm such as Gartner's, Barclays, Deloitte, Forbes or Goldman-Sachs. It's really hard to argue with respected sources such as these. I, for one, am impressed by the numbers I'm seeing from them concerning Apple's iGadget business product market share and corporate BYOD adoption.
For this reason, Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) software vendors must support any mobile device. But, Apple's products are mandatory.
It isn't enough to focus on Android phones alone. You have to support Windows devices, Android-based devices, Blackberry (at least temporarily) and Apple. The numbers just don't lie. When half your market is Apple, you can't ignore its existence to simply prove a point or to take a stand for open source operating systems. Either you're in it (The MDM or MAM business) for your customers or you're not.
Look at some numbers provided in a white paper from Apperian:
- 80% of Fortune 100 have adopted iPad.
- 88 of the Fortune 100 are deploying iPhones.
- 50% of FTSE 100 are using iPhones.
- 20% of Fortune 100 have 10K or more iPhones.
Can you afford to ignore those adoption rates?
Of course you can, if you want to push yourself out of the MDM/MAM market and then wonder, "What went wrong?"
Have a good time explaining that failure to your shareholders or stakeholders.
Ignore the numbers, if you want. I can't.
Look at those numbers again in context. 88 out of 100 large companies deploy iPhones. What's wrong with the other 12? Probably nothing except that they're direct Apple competitors and that's OK for them.
80 of the Fortune 100 have adopted iPads in their companies. The focus word here is "adopted." That means that they've done the case studies, have tested and have adopted iPads as part of their business model. A full 20% of the Fortune 100 have more than 10,000 iPhones.
On the other side of the BYOD fence is you, the employee or contractor who works in an environment where you see BYOD as some sort of "control thing." You oppose the idea of someone else managing a gadget that you own personally.
That would be a valid concern except that most BYOD environments do everything they need to do to your device in a single App. Deploy the App to your connected device to make sure it meets certain requirements and voila, that's all that's needed to integrate your device into the corporate network. No trouble, no reboots, no angst, no need for an Occupy movement to protest the BYOD overlords and best of all--no changes to your identity or your device.
If you separate from the company or decide to separate your device from the company, all you do is uninstall the App. If you're separated from the company, the BYOD administrator performs a remote App removal with no intervention needed from you and you're free again.
The five reasons for this massive uptake and adoption are pretty simple:
- Apple makes great products.
- Apple makes products that are easy to use.
- People like Apple products.
- Apple is the sole vendor of Apple products.
- Apple products are well supported by third parties.
Points 1, 2 and 3 are pretty obvious when discussing anything Apple. The products have excellent design. They're easy to use--very intuitive--no instructions needed. And, people love Apple's products because of their design and their ease of use.
Points 4 and 5 are from a corporate perspective.
Large businesses don't like product risk. They want stability in the company from which they select their corporate hardware. For example, the 88 Fortune 100 companies know that Apple isn't going to stop manufacturing the iPhone product line. They know Apple is here to stay. They know that no one can buy Apple and destroy its product lines. There's comfort and stability in Apple as a corporate choice.
Apple products also enjoy a huge third-party accessories and Apps market. "There's an App for that," isn't just a cute catch-phrase, it's a corporate tranquilizer. Large companies want to know that they have third-party buy-in on products they select. It helps with product longevity. And, it's another stabilizing factor and cementing factor in making business-wide product choices.
For businesses seeking product support and stability, it's a numbers game. Apple has the numbers on its side. 88% of the Fortune 100 can't be wrong.
Do you know any other reasons why businesses might adopt Apple products? Is it a wise business decision to do so? Talk back and let me know.