Best Smartphone OS for Business Users
Decisions, decisions, decisions. We are all faced with so many decisions nowadays that most of us are pretty decision-weary. We know that deciding which is the right smartphone OS for your business can be majorly headache-inducing. That’s why we are going to share with you our thoughts, experience and knowledge of mobile platform operating systems, gained over many years of helping our customers, to help you make the best decision for your business.
Once upon a time, it was all so easy…
A few years ago, deciding which mobile phone brand would be best for your business was pretty simple: BlackBerry. It was BlackBerry, or rather its developers, Research in Motion (RIM), who brought wireless email – something we now all take for granted – to the masses. BlackBerry was – and still is – reliable and secure. For a long time it was the go-to OS for business and government. As recently as 2010, according to its Wikipedia page, BlackBerry had a 43% share in the US market. So, you might ask, why do you hardly ever see anyone with a BlackBerry these days?
Answer: touchscreen
BlackBerry resisted touchscreen for too long, persevering with its tiny QWERTY keyboards when Apple and Google were drawing the crowds with their respective iOS and Android devices built with large screens and full of apps. BlackBerry believed that the iPhone with all its bells and whistles would never take off in the business world where BlackBerry dominated. Charge a Blackberry and the battery would last for weeks; charge an iPhone and it lasts just a few hours. How could something so flaky ever be a serious contender, RIM pondered. The reasons, as you will read below, are numerous, but for many, BlackBerry still has a place. When deciding which smartphone OS is the best fit for your business, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
- What do your staff need it for? Just calls? Emails? Apps? Productivity? Desktop sync?
- What is your budget? Are iPhones cost effective or even necessary for your business?
- What size/durability is required? Do you want a large screen to aid productivity or would your staff prefer something that doesn’t get in the way; do your people working in non-office environments need something a little more rugged? Maybe a 5 inch glass display isn’t practical.
Over the next few blog posts, we will be offering comparisons of some of the most important features of the four leading OS platforms (iOS, Android, Windows & BlackBerry) – these are all the things you should be considering when deciding which OS to plump for. We’ll be looking at everything from ease-of-use to apps, features and costs.
Read the next article in this series:
Part 2 – Ease-of-UseComments are closed.
