...than the US for a 3G iPhone.
IDC's Novosel went a step further, saying that the iPhone will definitely not be considered for business use in Australia until a HSPA version is released. "There are very few business users that would be willing to compromise and be stuck on dial-up equivalent speeds for the benefit of a nice screen and iPod in a single device," he said.
So who are the likely enterprise adopters?
IBRS's McIsaac sees adoption coming in specific areas like education and graphic design as well as in companies where CIOs are "Apple aficionados and can set the agenda". He believes SMBs with technically savvy bosses could also see high adoption rates.
Gartner's Baker thinks the phone's popularity in the consumer segment will be mirrored in the enterprise: "It's an elegantly done device with strong popularity in the consumer segment. An awful lot of consumers work in the enterprise."
Claudio Castelli, analyst at Ovum, also believes users will have a large say in whether or not the device makes it in the business world. "Business devices are very much chosen by the user," he said.
"Given time, there will be a niche market of business iPhone users, but the total iPhone penetration in Australia will not be nearly as high as initial hype would have suggested," Novosel said.
IDC forecasts that the iPhone will only have a 7.4 percent share of the total converged device market in Australia by 2012, with Symbian remaining the dominant operating system at 74.1 percent of the market. In terms of the overall mobile phone market in Australia, by 2012 the iPhone will comprise only 3.5 percent, Novosel said.
"When you consider that Nokia is now well over the 50 percent market share mark in Australia and with strong expansion goals in mind, I don't believe the iPhone is going to make any sort of serious splash in the business arena," he concluded.
RIMs outages help Apple's cause?
The timing of Apple's foray into the market comes after two outages for RIM within one year.
"Apple tried to position themselves [at the SDK roadmap launch] as not having that weakness in the distribution infrastructure," Gartner's Baker said, but he doesn't believe the outages will give the iPhone a big boost.
"It's not like the Blackberry folks are having an outage ever other week," he said.
14%
7%
