eWEEK Readers Shun BlackBerry

The vast majority of eWEEK readers reckon BlackBerry is no longer the smartphone of choice for enterprise users, with a third claiming they never liked the device in the first place.

In eWEEK Europe’s most popular poll yet, 34 percent of you voiced your dislike for Research In Motion’s business-oriented phone, claiming to have spurned BlackBerry from the start. Meanwhile, 26 percent said that consumer devices such as the iPhone and Android have overtaken BlackBerry in the enterprise.

Strikingly, a large number of readers used the ‘other’ category to express their opinion that Android devices are best suited to enterprise use. This implies that Android phones are starting to be viewed as business tools rather than merely consumer devices.

To a lesser extent, the same was true for Apple’s iPhone – another device that has traditionally been regarded as consumer-oriented – with respondents describing it explicitly as “enterprise friendly” and “the best enterprise device”.

Only four percent of you voted for Windows Phone 7, the platform that Microsoft hopes will give it a firm foothold in the mobile enterprise market. One reader went as far as to comment “Windows 7 sucks”, suggesting that Microsoft still has a lot of work to do to convince users that it is back in the smartphone game.

BlackBerry fans still loyal

Despite the obvious widespread opposition to RIM’s smartphones, a loyal core of BlackBerry fans were in evidence, with 16 percent of respondents stating that it remains far ahead of the competition. A further 14 percent said that BlackBerry is still ahead, but consumer devices are catching up fast.

The results expose the crossover of consumer and enterprise technology. Just as the BlackBerry Pearl gave RIM its first foothold in the consumer realm a few years ago, Apple’s iPhone showed business users that consumer smartphones could be used for work as well as play.

A recent survey by analyst firm Ovum revealed that 75 percent of businesses allow employees to use their corporate phones for personal communications. “Employees will want to use their devices, no matter who owns them, for both their work and personal lives,” said Ovum principal analyst Graham Titterington. “It is unrealistic to delineate between these uses for employees who are mobile and working out of the office for a large part of their time.”

Meanwhile, RIM’s attempt to break into the tablet market with its recently released PlayBook shows that the company is still grappling with the ‘consumer vs. business’ conundrum. Taking a form factor created by Apple for the purpose of entertainment and trying to turn it into a business device sounds like a recipe for disaster – but with technology becoming increasingly multi-purpose, RIM could be onto a good thing.

Ultimately, what the results of this poll show is that RIM needs to reinvent its image in the enterprise market – as there is clearly no love lost there.

What will you put in the cloud?

In next week’s poll, we’re asking you to tell us which business services you think are best suited to the cloud.

On Monday 22 November, the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) will launch its long-awaited code of practice, which aims to eventually standardise and certify enterprises offering cloud services. With many governments and large corporations starting to consider cloud options alongside traditional forms of computing, it is time to start considering the issues seriously.

So tell us what you think. Does your company shy away from the prospect of cloud services altogether, or are you diving in head-first? Do you love Gmail but hate Google Docs? Is storage in the cloud practical but security too risky? Do you rely on being able to communicate via cloud messaging and VoIP while you’re on the move, or do you prefer to keep everything where you can see it?

This time, for a change, you can choose more than one option – so don’t hold back. Vote using the poll in the left hand column of the site and join the debate.