mibisystems

ITIL teaches us that we, as IT service providers, need to be providing what the business needs to get their jobs done.  That doesn't mean sitting back and waiting for business people to come to us with new ideas but constantly scanning new technology to see how it might fit into our portfolio of services.

I've been canvassing my classes lately on the business utility of the Apple iPhone.  Few people have them, the IT department doesn't support them, and most of the functionality already exists on existing phones or Blackberries.  Conventional wisdom is that the iPhone is a consumer device and won't displace existing handheld devices.

This weekend I finally discovered a valid business use for the trendy phone.  A friend buys and sells stocks in her job as a portfolio manager and says that only the iPhone in landscape mode allows her to view stock quotes without having to scroll back and forth to see the both the stock symbol and the price at the same time.  In addition, one can also view more of a map.

More and more, web sites are presenting views friendly to mobile devices but there just isn't much screen space to view what people want to see--and what the site wants to show.  This may be the wedge that brings the iPhone into the office.  If so, the IT department is going to have to figure out how to manage them.