HSBC May Dump BlackBerries For iPhones… WHAT?
This one sounds too good to be true, but seeing as it’s popping up everywhere I decided to say something about it. IF this rumor is to be believed, HSBC (who are the planet’s largest bank) is looking at dumping their BlackBerries for the iPhones. IF this is true, this would make the iPhone their corporate standard for mobile devices:
Brenton Hush, chief information officer for HSBC in Australia and New Zealand, on Tuesday said the bank was looking at rolling out Apple Inc.’s iPhone across its worldwide workforce of 300,000.
“We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective … and when I say that, I mean globally,” he told ZDNet Australia.
“A decision on a piece of hardware like that would potentially be deployed, conservatively, to 200,000 people,” he said. “You know, it’s a big decision, especially when you have an existing fleet out there.
“But it’s definitely something we are considering from a HSBC Group perspective,” he said. “We always explore the potential application of new technologies and this is no different.”
Besides the fact that HSBC may be the first company to break the cycle of BlackBerry addiction, this would give Apple all sorts of legitimacy in the corporate IT market and perhaps make other companies switch as well. That all assumes that this report is true.
In my humble opinion, it won’t happen. Either they’ll look at it and decide that it’s not the right device for them and they’ll keep their BlackBerries. Or Research In Motion will send a small army of sales reps into HSBC to ensure they don’t become iCustomers.
August 14, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’d say they shouldn’t do it. No matter what Apple does with the iPhone I think its day-to-day functionality pales in comparison to the BlackBerry or even some of the Windows Mobile devices. The email management on the iPhone leaves much to be desired, in my opinion. If Apple improved the email management, making it easier to bounce back and forth between accounts; added a task list app that syncs with Outlook; and added an app to customize the home screen to include little widgets to display things like recent emails, tasks, upcoming appointments, etc instead of just a background picture and the clock, the iPhone would be much better suited for corporate use…or even personal small business use!