First of all, there's a study by SquareTrade that says the iPhone is "less than half as likely to fail" than phones from BlackBerry. In an IT environment that says a lot, because when a device fails, or starts to go south, it adds to IT costs - if nothing else, it's taking time away from IT that they could spend in maintenance and upgrades.
Next, there's a study from J.D. Power and Associates that says iPhone users are more satisfied with their phones than BlackBerry users. In J.D. Power's Business Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction, Apple scored 778 points out of a possible 1000, while RIM (manufacturer of BlackBerry devices) only scored 703.
From here, let's look at individual user experience. Subjective, to be sure, but still important:
Mitchell Ashley Compares the Storm and the iPhone. In his comparison, he finds that he prefers the Storm for phone quality, touch screen (the Storm's touch screen is a "double-click" paradigm, like Windows, while the iPhone, like the Macintosh, is a "single-click" paradigm), keyboard, battery life, and expandable memory. The iPhone wins on multi-touch support, web browsing experience, and application support.
While Mitchell Ashley seemed pretty clearly in favor of the BlackBerry, the San Jose Mercury News wasn't as impressed. Although they also liked the BlackBerry's keyboard and call quality, they found it hard to click on things in the UI: "Sometimes ... I had a hard time clicking on icons I wanted: At times, the browser would zoom in on the icon rather than activating it. Or I'd end up clicking an adjacent link". They also found that the BlackBerry would tend to bog down when trying to do too many things at once, such as looking at photographs while listening to music. And while neither activity is particularly business-related, it's worth noting that these devices will probably end up getting used for a lot of non-business purposes as well. :)
In a NetworkWorld comparison, the reviewers were particularly impressed by the iPhone's WiFi capability. This allows the iPhone to connect to local wireless networks when available to access the Internet, saving on per-minute data fees. On a large download, this cost savings can be quite significant. On the other hand, the reviewers thought that even though the iPhone had gone a long way towards being useful for enterprise users (particularly by supporting Microsoft SharePoint and Cisco IPsec VPN) the BlackBerry was still the de facto standard for enterprise wireless devices. As an IT professional, I particularly like how the BlackBerry allows IT departments to put fine-grained security policies on the devices, going so far as to allow the internal digital camera to be disabled via a security policy. On the other hand, there's the keyboard:
Blackberry keyboard on left.
Now, it's possible that this keyboard can be configured to have one "button" for each key, but as pictured here, that keyboard might just be a deal breaker.
Something that is also useful to consider is the network. In both 2007 and 2008, Verizon have come out ahead of AT&T in terms of call quality. Business users tend to spend a lot of time on the phone, so call quality is very important. Additionally, a 2008 survey found Verizon superior in terms of customer service and reliability.
Let's talk price: $200 after $50 mail-in rebate for the BlackBerry Storm. $199 for the iPhone 3G (8 GB version, $299 for 16GB). Both prices are with two year contract. Note also that these are consumer prices, but I expect business prices to be proportional.
Finally, let's discuss support for Zimbra, the mail server we use here. We're also quite fond of its calendaring and contacts, and it would be awfully nice if those things could be synchronized to the phone, as opposed to just email. I'll begin with the iPhone.
Zimbra's official word on the iPhone states that synchronizing the iPhone's native email, calendar, and contacts with ZCS can be done by means of ActiveSync. This requires Zimbra Network Edition (i.e. the one you pay for, not the free one). There is also a mobile client "built for devices such as the iPhone" called iZimbra.
Zimbra's support for BlackBerry requires the user not only to have Zimbra Network Edition, but also BlackBerry Enterprise Server - a significant price tag. However, with these systems in place, you get:
- Over-the-air synchronization of mail, address book, calendar in the native BlackBerry UI
- Sync to all BlackBerry devices
- Full access to Zimbra GAL
- Search messages
- Open / view attachments
- Manage calendar events; accept / decline meetings
- Administrators add / provision users directly in the BlackBerry Administration Console
This last bit troubles me a little. I'm used to adding and provisioning users in Zimbra's administration panel, but it looks here like I'd have to switch to doing things in this BlackBerry Administration Console. So maybe this solution is geared more towards organizations who already have a BlackBerry infrastructure in place.
So there you have it. After reading these articles, I'm leaning towards the iPhone. The BlackBerry has some nice things going for it - in particular, I'd love to experience the "tactile keyboard" thing that they're advertising - but overall, I think the iPhone is a more practical choice. It's more reliable, and there's less extra software to be put in place to synchronize it with Zimbra. It's what I'll be recommending.
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