Even though Steve Jobs spent hours earlier this week touting the new enterprise functionality of the new iPhone 3G at Apple Inc.’s WorldWide Developers Conference, at least one local mobile technology executive says that the new phone is not ready for the enterprise primetime.
Julie Palen, founder and CEO of InterNoded Inc. of Waltham, thinks that security and management issues need to be dealt with before the iPhone is integrated into any large enterprises. But the future is bright for the enterprise-ready iPhone, she said.
“I think that it will ultimately have an enormous impact. (However,) I think in the short term it is not going to have a major impact,” Palen said. “Every company we are talking to wants it, and has users that want it, and it is the latest and greatest thing.”
The problem is that, unlike the Blackberry system from Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) there is no way for the iPhone to be managed for security or support from the enterprise level. Right now, all changes done to an iPhone are done by the user, which keeps it more as a consumer device instead of one used in the enterprise market.
“Apple has a lot of work to do to be a major player in that kind of space. Controlling it all from iTunes is not a reasonable answer,” Palen said.
InterNoded makes the InterNoded Mobile Device Manager, a software suite that sits on an enterprise’s system and allows for centralized management and support of all connected mobile devices. The IMDM, which is agnostic for Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Good Mobile messaging platforms, will come out in version 4.0 on July 21, Palen said, and she would love to have a 4.1 update in August with iPhone support.
That would depend on whether the Software Developer Kits that will be released when the new iPhone scheduled to hit the shelves on July 11 will allow companies to develop applications that can control the iPhone remotely, allowing such things as technical support and remote installation of applications.
“This SDK that is available right now is about building applications to run on the iPhone, but not for developers to build out an enterprise-controlled application.”
Founded in 1993 as an Internet application development company, InterNoded made the shift after the dot-com bust to mobile device management. The company employs about 30 workers, according to Palen, and counts among its clients Fortune 100 companies that she wouldn’t name.
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