Deutsche Bank trial iPhone usage.

It’s an interesting commentary but I think the highlight of the story is missing from this article.

As per many organisations running trials with the type of software supplied by Good technology, this is aimed at supplying a secure route to corporate information (email, intranet etc) in a sand-boxed App on device.

In my experience organisations doing this are aiming at the personal device, namely reducing costs for the enterprise by potentially taking away a BlackBerry or other device supplied. A return to the principals of the Jericho foundation again!

So are Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, amongst others, really trialling iPhones or are they in fact trialling the delivery of corporate information access to, well to any device?

Well in this case it’s obviously the delivery of access that’s important and could potentially be run from both a personal or corporate device. If they were really trialling iPhones then there would be further challenges faced and in all honesty benefits gained if deployed correctly.

It may be the case that iPhones have been supplied to users by the bank for this trial, but I think a wider view is probably being taken in most trials; the utilisation of personal devices.

When I see these trials my initial reaction is always a view of it being a potential cost reduction exercise and not a replacement of BlackBerry’s in the enterprise, no bad thing overall but totally different to fully integrating the iPhone into the enterprise network.

This type of trial will become more common as the number (and variety) of smart phones carried by the workforce increases as they renew contracts. However, the important factor that has to be taken into account is the limited data allowance on personal contracts and this may be the issue once users start seeing a hike in telephone bills that used to be covered by the employer.

Well done to Deutsche Bank however for innovative thinking in addressing employee demand for access.