Jim Szafranski, senior VP of customer platform services at IBM’s Fiberlink unit, said many of its enterprise customers would like to see their employees use Windows Phone for work-related activities because of its tight integration with Microsoft’s back-end systems.
“IT likes Microsoft and likes Windows. They’ve made a lot of investment in things like Active Directory and Exchange and as a result they have a lot of interest in seeing Windows Phone used by employees. I don’t think anyone is going to be all Windows on mobile, but enterprises do want it and I think they have a strong opportunity when it comes to the enterprise side of purchase decisions.”
In response IBM’s Fiberlink recently released their MaaS360 suite on Windows Phone which provides secure e-mail, calendaring, contacts and a browser. “Since its launch in late 2012, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 has seen nearly steady growth in the enterprise: 12 percent of U.S. companies are planning on buying Windows Phone 8 devices in the first quarter of 2014,” said Chris Hazelton, research director for mobile & wireless at 451 Research.
“According to our ChangeWave Research, corporate users are more satisfied with Windows Phone 8 than they are with either Android or BlackBerry. We see growing demand and interest in the OS – which will drive a need for mobile management tools to support it.”
Nokia has earlier said they are aiming for 20% of the enterprise phone market by 2014, after winning 11.5% in less than 2 years, largely by displacing Blackberry and providing a better value and security proposition than iOS and Android.
via WMPOWERUSER
