iPhone vs Blackberry in the SoHo / SME world

We had opined that this would occur last year, and more recently were amused to note that Gartner had somewhat belatedly reversed their position (Forrester have yet to admit the iPhone is fit for business purpose).

If you go to the above lnk to our article, you'll see some of the quotes from a discussion I started on the Mobile Monday London board, where it became clear to us that the iPhone will do the job in many people's eyes. (This was brought about by a discussion with a client about viability of jumping blabkberry and going straight to iPhone)

More evidence, if it is needed, that the fight for the next generation mobile email device is on in this report on C:Net.

Unfortunately for Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, the in-store price for the 8820 was the same as the iPhone. I deliberated for all of three seconds and walked out with the iPhone.

My reason was simple: I needed something that would sync consistently with my Mac. My Blackberry-to-Mac sync has been hit or miss for the past year (though I've been testing a beta of the new PocketMac and it is quite good) and I'm fed up. I just want something that works.

The iPhone "just works," and then some.

I thought I wouldn't be able to type on the iPhone without tactile feedback. I was wrong. I'm actually faster on the iPhone than I ever was on the Blackberry, and that's with only an hour of "training."

I thought I would miss a host of things with my Blackberry, but I haven't. Instead, I've been blown away by the innovative use of gestures and the user interface. I resisted the iPhone for a year or so, but looking back it was inevitable that I'd end here.

Now, what is clear is that the Apple style user interface will be copied, but the iPhone has two other benefits - it is simply a better "standard render" web device than other mobiles (which impacts RIM), and it is also less susceptible to operators fiddling with it and making it non standard.(which impacts les autres).

The big difference between The Internet Crowd and Planet Mobile is that the IP people want the Web to run as is on a mobile device with minimal interference, whereas Planet Mobile wants to "optimise the experience". We hypothesize that the IP school will win in the next year or so, simply because the iPhone has shown it is possible.

This also means that developing for the iPhone (and following devices) will increasingly cost in vs devising services for the current confusion of varying operator stacks, operating systems and UI's out there. (There are NOT 2bn mobile phones out there, there are 2bn mobile devices operating in a "Tower of Babel" of fragmented small segments, few of which are in themselves viable markets).

I would hypothesize that the SoHo and SME world will adopt non-Blackberry first, as they have the more flexible, less legacy tech stacks, and that divisions of corporates will follow, dragging Corp CIOs kicking and screaming behind.