Is the iPhone a threat to the BlackBerry?

Apple’s newest iPhone is said to be ready to take on the business world. We’ll take a look into just how ready the iPhone really is to break into this exclusive market ruled by the BlackBerry.

The iPhone caught on very quickly as a consumer grade all-in-one device that redefined how people defined mobile phones. It was only a matter of time before the business world recognized the value in the features available through the iPhone. Other manufactures, including BlackBerry, have released products to emulate the iPhone. Some of these products aren't too shabby, but most fall short of delivering the iPhone experience.

New features of the iPhone 3Gs make the device friendlier to the business environment such as the ability to sync with Exchange servers, the inclusion of a Cisco IPSec VPN client and the support for SSL/TLS. Other features Apple is pushing is the ability to remote wipe the device from Exchange, the built in encryption and the ability to apply policy’s to administer the iPhone.

Despite these additions to the iPhone, some business owners are still wary of switching to a device that has been labeled as a consumer grade device. Apple’s “App Store” is a large part of this. Even though the apps available for purchase or download need to be approved by Apple, they can still have security holes in them and many of the apps available aren’t business oriented which may lead to distraction instead of production.

There is one major flaw of the iPhone that has recently come to light. The iPhone itself is easily hacked and the encryption broken in less than 2 minutes when in the hands of a knowledgeable hacker with easily downloadable freeware. This of course requires physical access to the device. This flaw alone is enough for many companies to remove the iPhone from consideration.

With the capabilities of the device and the ease of creating proprietary applications for the device, the iPhone has turned out to be a fairly good competitor in the business market. But to answer my initial question, is the iPhone a threat to BlackBerry? Not at this stage of the game. The iPhone is a great device and may get some market share from small business owners who don’t have email servers or aren’t worried about the information stored on the device.
The device is right at the cusp of being a great business grade device that offers much more than BlackBerry. But it still needs some work. The hardware itself is quite capable, but the onboard security is going to cost iPhone the Enterprise market share where there is no compromise in data security. But upcoming OS releases of the iPhone will fix these errors and oversights. The iPhone is going to become a force that BlackBerry will have to deal with.

Windows 7 Review

Is Windows 7 Microsoft’s next try at a failed Vista operating system or can we finally upgrade from XP with confidence? When I first installed Windows 7, I was expecting an experience very similar to Windows Vista. I was pleasantly surprised when I installed 7 on a single core 2Ghz Sempron with 2GB RAM laptop, it ran much better than I expected.

Upon installation of Windows 7, I noticed that the OS booted in a respectable time and the USB support was quick to install devices that would normally take Vista and XP several seconds to install. Doing my typical performance check after an initial install, I also found that Microsoft’s new OS had very few services running with respect to its previous operating systems. The CPU usage on my mediocre machine was at a staggeringly low 15%, compared to Vista’s 75% on a similar machine.

The way Windows 7 looks is very similar to Windows Vista with the exception of a few changes. Microsoft has changed the taskbar and the way windows are grouped. This is a feature that may take a little getting used to, but I have found it to be useful. Other features of Vista are the same in 7 such as the window preview when the mouse hovers over the taskbar. Microsoft’s new interface seems to have been sped up and is more responsive on lesser systems. That’s not to say that I didn’t experience any bugs with my Release Candidate version of Windows 7. But the bugs I did experience were either a bit of a nuisance, such as logging in locally while joined to a domain, or they were problems that are already being addressed with the retail version of the OS.

Microsoft’s UAC (User Account Control) is still in place and gives you popups to ask for permission to run processes. But Microsoft has made it much easier to customize the UAC or disable it completely. The system tray is also much more customizable. Options are available to hide or show icons of your choosing and change the alert level of each icon, making the system tray a much better tool.

In the past, Microsoft labeled machines that were “capable” of running Windows Vista. These machines, I would say, did a very poor job of being able to run Vista. Those same machines are going to be able to run Windows 7 and the Aero interface with little trouble. I would be hard pressed to find a machine that won’t run Windows 7 aside from the least expensive Netbooks.

Windows 7 isn’t compelling me to run out update my PC. There are no breakthrough features that are going to change computing as we know it, but it’s an improvement. Windows 7 is an OS to keep up with the times. We need to accept that Windows XP will eventually go the way of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Windows 7 is the OS that Vista wanted to be. It will fill the XP void and lead us into the next generation of Windows Operating Systems.

Mac & Windows War

DailyTech

As a photographer I see the value of a mac. They are stable and fast machines, although I can argue the point as to why. They fit the arts niche well. As an IT professional, Windows machines are where my focus will remain. Knowing the pros and cons of both, I found this article amusing.