MocoNews‘ Tricia Duryee had a chance to sit down with AT&T’s Senior VP Business Mobility Marketing, Jeff Bradley, and managed to wrangle some insightful perspectives on the enterprise market and how the iPhone and BlackBerry play in to the business-class smartphone segment – the iPhone vs. BlackBerry war, if you will.
While popular opinion has pitted the iPhone against the BlackBerry as the gotta-have enterprise smartphone of 2008, AT&T’s got a totally different take. As we’ve said time and time again, each handset has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, and that’s how AT&T is marketing the iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Bold.
Bradley sees the iPhone 3G as a competent enterprise device that will serve all manner of subscriber-types – be they consumer, prosumers, or enterprise customers, the iPhone 3G will be a hit across the board. The BlackBerry Bold 9000, however, will find its own niche amongst the hardcore enterprise crowd that is die-hard loyal to their physical keyboards. Although, Bradley himself reiterates what I’ve been saying all along – the virtual keyboard on the iPhone is as fast (if not faster than) a physical keyboard, but it just takes some getting used to. So, there’s really no war between the two of the hottest smartphones to launch in 2H 2008, according to AT&T.
What’s is interesting is how AT&T is catering to the enterprise market with the iPhone. Businesses involved in everything from insurance or real estate to pharmaceuticals are interested in using the iPhone 3G’s enterprise and multimedia capabilities to train salesforces and pitch new products to clients.
So, if you want a top-notch physical keyboard and industry-leading push email capability, then the BlackBerry Bold will be your best-fit handset. If you can forgo a hard keyboard in favor of multimedia capabilities and massive internal storage, you’ll be looking toward the iPhone for satisfaction. In the end, the consumer wins. Go us!
[Via: MocoNews]