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British Bank Offers Employees Option of Switching From BlackBerry to iPhone

Monday May 17, 2010 1:09 pm PDT by Eric Slivka

Reuters reports that British bank Standard Chartered is offering more communication options to its global team of bankers, moving away from BlackBerry as the sole smartphone approved for use by the company to allow bankers to adopt the iPhone as their platform for mobile business tasks.

Standard Chartered bankers in Asia told Reuters that the London-based lender was giving its corporate Blackberry users the option of switching to the iPhone, with the company agreeing to continue to pay monthly billing for business-related telephone and data services.

"It's a group-wide initiative involving wholesale and consumer banks globally," said a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Standard Chartered, told Reuters.

With 75,000 employees worldwide, Standard Chartered's acceptance of the iPhone may mark the beginning of a shift away from exclusive use of Research in Motion's BlackBerry smartphones in the banking industry.

The report notes that security and other technical issues make it somewhat difficult for companies to pursue the necessary testing and implementation to make such a switch, but that Standard Chartered is a significant entity to come down on the side of allowing iPhones onto its business networks.
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paul4339
Posted: 26 months ago
not sure why they would do this (that's what is the business reason)... seems like BB is well suited for the business market (security, configurable, etc)

P.
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billyzenme
Posted: 26 months ago

not sure why they would do this (that's what is the business reason)... seems like BB is well suited for the business market (security, configurable, etc)

P.


iPhones can be easily configured by IT admin too.
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obsoletepower
Posted: 26 months ago
Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!
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rish
Posted: 26 months ago

Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!


Are we sure these iPhone users aren't calling from abroad or even where the cell tower needs maintenance. The only time I've had a complaint was when I called China. Had my mate call me back and he sounded a bit like Darth.
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reden
Posted: 26 months ago

Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!


You seem to be quite distressed. Perhaps you should take a deep breath, and count backwards from 10 to 1.
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LondonCentral
Posted: 26 months ago
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7129144.ece

I'm sure Standard Chartered tested out the iPhone before making this decision. They're not idiots. Hopefully now we'll see a surge in professional industry apps for internal personnel. Sure such things take time, but it'll happen and it'll be sweet.
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SteveLV702
Posted: 26 months ago

Who the **** would want an iPhone period?? Let alone in enterprise....iPhone is TERRIBLE as a phone. It has one of the worst call qualities I have experienced. To someone on the other line it sounds muffled and very base-y. This is due to the low quality microphone / digitizer they use in it. Definitely stick to the blackberry!


probably wasn't using a real iPhone and just using one of those cheap china knock offs.
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iphones4evry1
Posted: 26 months ago
The company I work for already issues iPhones to it's employees. About 12 months ago, they switched all phones from Blackberries to iPhones. I'm not going to say who I work for, but the total company has 9,000 employees. Now obviously, less than half of those employees have a company-issued cell phone, but for all of the people that do, they are issued iPhones.
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whoartie
Posted: 26 months ago
I can safely say that in many parts of asia, iphones don't drop connections like they do in New York.

Not sure about the security issues that have been mentioned but I've a relative in Standard Chartered. The bank has created a new app for consumer banking on Iphones and from a marketing point of view, it makes more sense to go the way of the iphone in terms of consumer banking (more bling, more hype etc.. pls don't flame me here..)

On another front, they are very much pro- Apple. They have substantial staff discounts on Macs and seem to be giving away Iphones FOC to certain staff (maybe to clear stock in anticipation of iphone 4G?).
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///M5
Posted: 26 months ago
OMG! A bank gives its employees iPhones. This news should be sticky on the front page until some bigger news shows up, maybe WWDC?

I wish I worked there. NOT!

/thread
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