Someone Else

PCWorld.com for Business? Forget it.

Ok, the Captain has to comment on this article, discovered through daring fireball. No  wait, that link is dead because the author of the article decided to issue some kind of correction.

For months now, you've barely been able to pop open a web browser without spotting a few iPhone stories raving about the fact that it only does what it says it does. That could spell trouble for journalists who are unable to read and IT Managers who believe the opinions of apparently brain-dead journalists without checking facts (perhaps these kinds of IT Managers should get a job writing for pcworld.com?).

From the article: "Most consumers won't find much fault with their iPhone's e-mail support. It handles IMAP and POP3, as well as a variety of webmail services such as GMail and Yahoo Mail. But if, like the preponderance of large enterprises, you run Microsoft Exchange, forget it."

But I don't want to forget it. I know the owner of this site used IMAP to talk to his exchange email account at work for years from his phone, while waiting for Microsoft's email server division and mobile device division to decide how to talk to one another.

"Sure, you could work around this problem to get e-mail to your users' phones by configuring their accounts for POP3 access as well,"

Ok. And now the captain is all confused. Wouldn't you use IMAP, as that is supported very well by both players in this play the captain likes to call "reading your mail", and provides a reasonably close experience to what Microsoft are trying to do with Exchange and Windows Mobile? 

"but that just gives them the latitude to delete messages willy nilly, which is bound to mean more support calls for you."

Wow. Just wow. Are you saying that deleting messages at all is Just Plain Wrong? Or that deleting "Willy Nilly" is something you can only do from an iPhone and that it's also wrong somehow. Or did you mean to type "I'm a complete and total idiot. The only way I could be more of a tool is if I had a price tag stuck between my eyes from your local hardware store."

But typing "Willy Nilly" is kind of fun. You've got something going there. The crap journalist scattered blatently wrong rubbish throughout his article, all willy-nilly. Say that was fun!

"The iPhone also cuts users off from useful Exchange features such as group scheduling."

Right. I'll let you have that one as I have no idea on that issue and I appear to be wiping the floor with you anyway.

"At the same time, the iPhone lacks support for Microsoft Office file attachments, which means that, unlike the Blackberrys, Moto Qs, and Blackjacks you may have now, it can't open a Word document or Excel spreadsheet at all."

Apple would disagree. They seem to think their phone can open PDF, Word and Excel docs just fine. Don't know about PPT though. But are you saying their list here is wrong?

"In addition to these major shortcomings, the iPhone currently offers no VPN support, so you can forget about giving your users secure access to internal network resources from the road."

Seems that Apple, yet again, disagree. Maybe they don't offer support for whatever esoteric VPN client you prefer but that's totally different from "no VPN support".

"But the worst problem with the iPhone is likely to be its reliance on Apple's iTunes, which it uses for updating everything from its calendar to its system software. At this point, I've yet to meet a single IT manager who would be willing to add iTunes to his or her list of supported apps."

Hi. I'm Captain Obvious and I'd do that no problem. The owner of this site, Rob, said to say "Hi" too. Apparently iTunes is a supported app across his entire network (couple of thousand users apparently) should anyone show a need to have it.

iTunes and Quicktime are perhaps not the best-behaved networkable apps on Windows machines but they're a very long way from being the worst.

And while the iCal calendar format may be gaining ground in the consumer space, it still lacks compatibility with many business scheduling systems, which means many business users won't be able to get their calendars onto their handsets.

Another point for you, I guess. Though these people could use Outlook Web Access to get at their calendar. And group functions now I think about it. Strikes me that if someone real important insisted, you could put something together based around tools like this though.

So the next time your CEO comes bounding into your office demanding an iPhone to complement his slick self-image, take heed. Or maybe just show him this article.

Right. Because I need my boss to think I take advice on his IT strategy from no-talent asshats who can't spend 20 seconds doing the most basic checking of facts before running their mouth off. Why don't I just save us all some time by quitting right now?

Fashionable and advanced though it may be for consumers, the iPhone simply isn't ready to do business.

Depends on what your business is. This site published a list of "issues" we think we spotted with the iPhone some time ago, and we still have our doubts. But those issues will not affect every business out there. And while some people will probably disagree with our list here, at least we didn't make it up out of whole cloth.