Mobile Industry Review - Latest Comments in HSBC placing a 200,000 unit iPhone order?

Re: HSBC placing a 200,000 unit iPhone order?

tim — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:02:33 -0000

For any bank to consider the use of the iPhone 3G is rash, at the moment.
There is no encryption, the device is broken within days of a firmware release, the email software does not support many features that Blackberry and competitors have, e.g. out of office notification, update of reply/forward flags, priority flags, message sort or find. There are limited Bluetooth profiles (though this may be seen as an advantage), no printing or document editor, no direct Lotus Notes or Groupwise support. No external keyboard support. Poor 3G and GPS reception (when compared to the E71). The list of other concerns is very extensive.
Yet ease of use and sheer readabilty of the screen may be persuasive enough for some companies, particularly SME's, to make the iPhone 3G a standard tool.
Until Apple evolves the iPhone firmware with secure and productive business features I hope HSBC would not convert their BlackBerry's to iPhones. Perhaps next year though?

Re: HSBC placing a 200,000 unit iPhone order?

Burak — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:57:10 -0000

This sounds very un-HSBC to me, they're quite well known for penny pinching and it's no secret that the iPhone is an expensive piece of kit to own and operate. If this works out then it will be with a pretty impressive subsidy from Apple, plus they'll probably have to somehow disable the fun parts of the phone. Does this mean that Apple are having a hard time shifting units, or are they coming up with a fun-free corporate version of the iPhone?

Re: HSBC placing a 200,000 unit iPhone order?

Martin Bryant — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:32:31 -0000

Yeah, if this is true it does seem a little foolhardy of them. If they're sick of Blackberries then Nokia E71s would be a much better option.