It's easy to assume that the 7-in. PlayBook stands to take market share from Apple in the business world, where the iPad has already gained some ground since its arrival in April. After all, the BlackBerry has long been the de facto smartphone in business and government, aided by the fact that it is managed by RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), conventionally considered the best software for secure smartphone management.
IT control and monitoring of BlackBerries via BES has always been the crown jewel of RIM's business model and a major selling point to enterprises because it ensures device and data security that's a step above any other platform's. Compared to the iPad's limited management capabilities and enterprise features, that would seem to make the PlayBook a home run for many businesses.
But will that be true? Most arguments that have been made against the iPad's enterprise features and management are valid -- right now. The iPad currently ships with Version 3.x of Apple's iOS, whose management capabilities are limited, not to mention time- and labor-intensive to implement.
However, the PlayBook, like the Cius, won't ship until next year. By then, Apple will have updated the iPad's operating system to Version 4.2, adding to it the same rich remote deployment capabilities, device-monitoring features, and user-account-driven provisioning and management capabilities now available with the iPhone 4 -- including a wide swath of user restrictions, remote access capabilities and security features.
Apple's iOS 4.2 is due out next month.
So let's compare the iPad -- a device that is already shipping and is about to see a substantial operating system update -- with the PlayBook, which isn't even on the market and about which some mysteries remain when it comes to price, storage capacity and battery life.
Enterprise management and data
What happens if an employee loses or forgets his smartphone -- the one the PlayBook is synced to? Does that preclude access to the tablet? And will the syncing requirements mean higher deployment costs if every PlayBook has to be matched to a BlackBerry?