Apple iPhone surpasses BlackBerry as number one phone for enterpise use

Information from iPass suggests that businessmen on the go are no longer turning to BlackBerry as the smartphone for enterprise use. The latest information shows that the Apple iPhone now has a 45% share of the mobile enterprise market compared with a 32% slice of the pie belonging to BlackBerry. Over the past year, Android has more than doubled its presence in the business market and now has a 21% share which surpasses Symbian and puts Google's open source OS in third place. It is a far cry from December 2010 when Apple could only look into the future and hope to take enterprise share from BlackBerry. At the time, RIM had over 50% of the mobile business market.

According to iPass, there is a price to be paid for the 91% penetration that smartphones have in the enterpise market. Mobile employees are now "hyperconnected" and are willing to pass on sleep in exchange for their job. 33% of these workers say that they sleep less because of work, with 25% saying that they grab less than 6 hours of shut eye a night. More than 50% of employees say that their exercise schedule is not stable or that they don't exercise at all while 60% blamed work for that erratic exercise schedule. What is most telling is that 59% of mobile employees said that they would feel disoriented, distraught or lonely without their smartphone. With more companies allowing workers to use their own smartphone to work, mobile employees are feeling more attached than ever to the device while on the job.

Smartphones are obviously a very necessary part of today's business world as employees who carry one contribute 240 more work hours a year than those without a handset. And for those bosses who think that letting an employee carry a smartphone would lead to workers wasting company time watching YouTube videos and playing games, the study shows that only 28 minutes are wasted on such distractions. Work related issues account for the first two distractions, going through company email and technical issues. The third is social media which obviously has a personal bent to it. As far as tablets are concerned, the device is also making inroads in the business world as 44% of mobile employees now use a tablet for work, up from a 33% share in the second quarter of this year.

source: iPass