iPod Touch Gaining Enterprise Credibility

When the iPhone first came out, there was a sudden rush of executives that were trying to justify the use of this phone in the enterprise. Now, according to this post on the Burton Group Blog the iPod Touch might be an even bigger story than the iPhone. The iPod Touch already supports the Safari web browser and enterprise capabilities like support for virtual private networks (L2TP/IPSEC, Cisco IPSec, and PPTP). These latest numbers from the AdMob report show how traffic from the iPod Touch is just exploding!

• Traffic from iPod Touch in the US and UK was “2.7 and 3.2 times higher” the week after Christmas than the week before.
• “The iPod Touch is now the #2 device in the AdMob network with a 4.7% share.” The #1 device is the iPhone with a 10.8% share.

These numbers show us that the Touch might someday surpass the iPhone itself. For enterprise purposes, I want to see how well the Touch will compete with Blackberry’s release of its touch screen model, the Storm.

BlackBerry Goes Touch-Screen

Larry Dignan gives us several reasons why the release of RIM’s Storm, a rival to the iPhone 3G, is so important to the market in his latest post on ZDNet. Here they are:

Why is the Storm important?

• RIM can use the Storm to rally telecom carrier support–especially among those left out of the iPhone launch.
• The Storm will define how RIM is viewed among consumers.
• The Storm may be able to thwart any enterprise momentum gained by Apple’s iPhone.

Will the release of the touch-screen Storm stop executives from asking IT for iPhone support on the corporate network? Only time will tell what effect the RIM Storm will have on enterprise practices.