When it comes to the smartphone wars, Research
In Motion scored a bit of a coup in the first quarter of 2009, according to
research firm The NPD Group, when its BlackBerry mobile device assumed 50
percent of the U.S.
smartphone market, beating out Apple’s
iPhone. RIM had a full 15 percent jump in market share versus the last quarter
of 2008.
At the same time, NPD found that both Apple and Palm experienced declines of
roughly 10 percent each.
In the United States,
according to NPD, the top-five bestselling smartphones were RIM’s BlackBerry
Curve (all 8300 models), followed by the Apple iPhone 3G, RIM’s BlackBerry
Storm, RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl (all models except flip) and the T-Mobile G1.
"Verizon Wireless' aggressive marketing of the BlackBerry Storm and its
buy-one-get-one BlackBerry promotion to its large customer base contributed to
RIM capturing three of the top five positions," Ross Rubin, director of
industry analysis at The NPD Group, said in a statement. "The more
familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able
to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S.
national carriers."
Earlier on May 4, RIM
announced the release of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0, designed to
increase IT administrators’ ability to handle an increasingly mobile enterprise
work force; many of the solutions linked to the server allow for increased
functionality of the BlackBerry device line for enterprise users.
The BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 integrates with IBM
Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise, and features increased
security for many functions, such as e-mail, organizer data, instant messaging
and enterprise applications.
For
its part, Apple has been increasing its marketing dollars to try to sell the
iPhone as an enterprise device, but a recent survey shows that the devices
have found greater penetration in the consumer segment, which uses the App
Store to primarily download games. The survey, by Complete, suggests that
between 76 to 100 percent of iPhone usage is for personal use.
Apple intends to bring out a new iPhone in the summer of 2009, accompanied
by a sturdier iPhone OS 3.0, which suggests that these market share numbers
could shift as the year progresses.
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Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
