Even Wall Street Wants an iPhone: UBS, J.P. Morgan Think About Bailing on BlackBerry

September 10, 2010 at 9:55 am PT

Are you one of the people convinced that Research in Motion (RIMM) is doomed because its BlackBerry line can’t keep up with the iPhone? Then you’ll love this report from Bloomberg, which says that two of Wall Street’s biggest banks–UBS and J.P. Morgan–are considering letting employees use the Apple handsets as their official work phone.

J.P. Morgan (JPM) is even thinking about supporting Google’s (GOOG) Android, Bloomberg reports:

JPMorgan is testing the Apple Inc. device and smartphones based on Google Inc.’s Android software, said the people, who didn’t want to be named because the plans haven’t been made public. The bank is the second-largest in the U.S. by assets and has about 220,000 employees worldwide.

UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, said it is also considering allowing its staff to use iPhones for company messaging as more of them opt for the Apple product. UBS has more than 63,000 employees…

JPMorgan would not buy iPhones or Android phones for employees, as it now does with BlackBerrys. Rather, the bank would allow employees to use the devices to send and receive corporate e-mail if they make the purchase themselves, the other person said.

The iPhone (and Android) migration into the (officially sanctioned) workplace isn’t new, but the move to Wall Street would be important symbolically. Bankers and their cohorts were the ones responsible for boosting BlackBerry years ago, when they called them “crackberries” and flashed them as status symbols.

The flip side of the story is also the version that gives RIM a fighting chance: BlackBerries used to be a corporate tool, but they’re now very much a consumer device. So there’s a scenario, theoretically, where it switches places with Apple’s (AAPL) phone line, which started out life in 2007 as an expensive toy you couldn’t use for work. Things move fast….

Tagged with: Android, Apple, Blackberry, Bloomberg, crackberries, Google, handsets, J. P. Morgan, MediaMemo, Peter Kafka, Research In Motion, RIM, software, UBS, Wall Street

comments so far. Add yours.

John Peters

Um, they are not replacing the corporate BlackBerrys. They are only allowing staff who do not currently have a BlackBerry to be chained to their office desk by allowing them to access their emails over their existing handset. JPMorgan is not looking to replace corporate BlackBerrys with iPhones, Androids, or anything else.
Anonymous

Everybody I know at work are holding their breaths for the official memo to come down allowing us to use iPhone for office mail. Shxt! It’s like the Israelis waiting on Moses to deliver them out of Egypt!
Anonymous

I understand the excitement. The iPhone phenomenon reminds me of when HTML first came out around 1995 and everybody and his cousins are screaming for HTML projects replacing the 3270 data streams.

Look at HTML now…
http://twitter.com/chrispycrunch Chris Lau

It’s incredible that most readers of this headlines don’t realize that iPhones for the most part are allowed connections to corporate email…only the company won’t pay your phone bill. They will pay only to have their staff using a blackberry. The story that RIM is losing on the corporate market is old news and worthless: the time to have recognized this was in Mar/Apr when the stock was $70. It’s down 50%. Upside or a support price at this point is random (takeout rumors will come next).
John Peters

You’re a spammer.
squawkBOX

Yep, I agree. A very misleading headline. Poor journalism strikes again.
Anonymous

John,

Once employees are allowed to “bring their own iPhone” to the corporate culture, they absolutely will. And then, when the companies see that such an employee no longer needs his Blackberry, it will take the opportunity to save the money by canceling the account (and not replace the phone).

This will ABSOLUTELY result in a replacement of a significant number of Blackberrys with (employee procured) iPhones, and everybody will be happy… even those users that now have to pay for their cell phone service. (They were the ones that chose to, in this scenario.)

Thompson
Anonymous

Yes, the current iPhone/Android wave is very much akin to the HTML craze, and a similar fate await both, whereas Research In Motion will have the last laugh.

Meanwhile, I have a nice ocean front property for sale in Phoenix, AZ. Interested?
Anonymous

Email connection uses data lines, not telephone lines. HR doesn’t pay for telephone calls, only the Blackberry data plan is free. In fact, office issued Blackberry telephone calls are discouraged and any calls using the Blackberry are charged to the employee.
Anonymous

Question. How will JPMorgan and UBS manage security and device administration for their iPhones? I would think that Financial institutions would be very concerned about this.
Anonymous

Corporate chairmen are salivating over the prospect of big immediate savings from removing the subsidy of Blackberrys for the employees, and the very high costs of BES in comparison to other enterprise functions.
Anonymous

My experience mirrors that of “Jamesapple”. You can bury your head in the sand if you wish, but trust me… RIM is going to be in for some serious pain in the next couple of years.
Anonymous

“Um, they are not replacing the corporate BlackBerrys. They are only allowing staff who do not currently have a BlackBerry to be chained to their office desk by allowing them to access their emails over their existing handset. JPMorgan is not looking to replace corporate BlackBerrys with iPhones, Androids, or anything else.”

Yeah, right.

Rimm’s (and those who think Lazy & Silly water on water with their constant statements of Rimm’s “Great New Product Roadmap”) new slogan should be “Customers? We don’t need no stinkin’ Customers!”

Rimm can formally use this new slogan, free of charge.

You’re welcome Lazy.

You too, Silly.

Ayuh
Anonymous

Frankly, once HR stops issuing Blackberrys, what are the chances of employees going out and buy their own Blackberrys for office email?
Anonymous

giovanp,

That very question is what they are trying to answer during this testing period. If the test results in approval for the iPhone, then that will be indication that they answered the question to their satisfaction.

Thompson
Anonymous

Slim. Very slim.

Thompson
Anonymous

Savings by removing BES and its administration is by far the biggest driving force in going iPhone over Blackberrys. SMTP and other industry standards have long been deployed by applications, systems, individuals and workgroups to collaborate by email. Business Workflow has long had built-in email task that forwards and receives email workitems which are tied to corporate reporting structures for Workflow agents. This email Workitems also carry the optimized info and documents necessary targeted for the recipient’s role, access, responsibilities, response requirements, as well as ability to delegate. Email is free form mail having little real value in real world business processes because of the email’s unmanageability and unorganizability.
Anonymous

Things move fast only if you’re not paying attention: the iPhone is solidly entrenched as a successful consumer device. This is what is driving the change this article reports. Blackberry opportunity for growth or even holding its own has now been torched. It isn’t a consumer product no matter what the ads pretend. Android is breaking apart, open to dominance by competing telcos who have no qualms gutting it to serve their own interests.
Anonymous

That has already happened where I work. It was 100% BlackBerry in 2008 and now is 60% iPhone 3GS/4, 40% BlackBerry. Now I-T is being forced to support iPad because so many users are bringing them in. This is at a big multinational. Part of the reason this could happen so fast is iOS devices work with all the existing Exchange systems that were created for notebooks.
Anonymous

iPhones have encryption, tracking, and remote wipe tools similar to BlackBerry. iPhones can use any secure email server, just like a notebook computer. iPhones can access secure Web apps, just like a notebook computer. iPhones can access VPN just like a notebook computer. If you have notebook computers at your company, you are very likely 90% iPhone ready already.
Anonymous

Another thing is training, or lack of it with iPhone. Users already know them or learn them quickly by themselves. Also, it’s very fast and easy to make custom native apps, and the Web browser easily runs HTML5 Web apps. My company built its first iPhone app and it took one coder about a month and cost much, much less than what we typically pay for a Web app, and the iPhone app is much faster and easier to use. It really, really impressed.
Anonymous

Actually we recently went through with Personal Liable to bring your own smartphone as we put in Good Technology and the adoption is not as robust as management thought it would be. Most people do not want to pay for it their own and a far greater amount prefer to keep their personal and work life seperate.

This only works where companies kick in some subsidy but that negates any cost savings and adds a large administration effort to track. And there IS a significant cost as while yes you can cancel accounts almost every major corporation also have a line obligiation to meet or they will lose / face reduced carrier incentives so again – more savings lost as you unload X number of lines to personal liable – your corporate rate is more so it’s a wash.

One of the big issues we’ve run into is what do you do when a personal liable device is lost / stolen / broken for a senior member? Under corporate plan you have leverage to buy / keep replacements on hand. Personal Liable all that is on the users so it’s up to them and then you have people you need to reach without a device.

Another stat is via BES Express our Blackberry population grew 30% from all the non corporate Blackberries staff had.
Anonymous

BES Express is Free .. no cost so companies will likely allow whatever device employees have as long as the backend (and securuity) are there.

So much FUD on here it’s sickening.
Anonymous

HR doesn’t issue anything in most companys outside of HR related policy,

What are the chances all employees will pay for their own smartphone? So if a needed employee doesn’t they just remain disconnected from everyone else? That’s effective.
Anonymous

I guess we will see Sept 14th if RIM is holding their own or not. Last few quarters have shown a 50 / 50 market breakdown between consumers / corporate. Anytime I travel I see a ton of Blackberries compared to anything else. It’s due to they have the most carrier agreements and a large product line for different budgets.
Anonymous

Being in the same vertical as JP/UBS I will state there is little to no device administration from our evaluation. Thus we bought Good Technology which acts .. JUST LIKE A BES (but double the cost). Everyone alludes to Exchange ActiveSync but it’s merely a means to get “push” email with limited policy set.

I’d love to see their findings after and I’m sure they will identify the same issues.
Anonymous

Typically a simple app should take 2 to 5 days to complete using the iPhone SDK. Your first iPhone app was probably going through a lot of requirement changes during the testing phase.
Anonymous

That’s quite draconian. Also, in most large corporations the BBs are issued from the HR. The BBs still belong to the corporation. Most employees are already carrying two handsets, one Corp handset and one personal. The point is when the Corp seizes the opportunity and stops issuing handsets, who would go out and buy another handset for corporate usage?
Anonymous

Figures had been out for quite a while. Android 2 year subs went up to 33%+ whereas Blackberry 2 year subs went down from 55%+ to 28% over the same period. Android Droids, Evo, Incredible, Galaxy S are perennial sold-outs everywhere while BBs are now duds. Torch sold 150000 units whereas iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million during their respective weekend launches. Your Blackberry bias is painfully obvious but definitely going against all the hard facts and figures. Please stop your exercise in ‘raising the Titanic’. From all industry indications Rim is in deep trouble and heading for even more.
http://garyfales.com/ asset protection

Look deeper into this story to find the connections that JP Morgan has with Google and related clients. That’s really at the heart of this story. This change is about legal deals, not necessarily the quality of the technology involved.
Anonymous

Biased? You spread FUD about RIM any chance you get. Where are the hard facts? Some random sampling surveys on what device you MIGHT buy next? The lose of RIM’s market share? Apple is the one done more this year, Android is up, RIM is slightly doen but holding their own.

Please stop failing for every article meant to feed the short selling RIM is getting slammed with. They have plenty of cash in the bank, zero debt and capable of using the same screens, CPUs etc.

Also I fail to sell how iPhone 4 to BB Torch means anything other then they are both on at&t? Apple releases one iPhone per year on one carrier so there is built up demand, the launch was also 77% upgrades. If Torch was RIM’s solo device I’d be worried with a 150k launch. It’s still being rolled out to other international carriers and they have also launch Pearl 3G, Curve2, Bold 9650 etc. Combined they are right with everyone else in overall sales.

So next week we will see either their quarter is still solid or it will show major slowdown. If it doesn’t let’s stop this crap and realize the mobile market is very very large and neither Apple or Android will own a major share.

Even Wall Street Wants an iPhone: UBS, J.P. Morgan Think About Bailing on BlackBerry

comments so far. Add yours.

AllThingsD by Writer