Those iPhones. They'll kill ya.

Rob Enderle has some horrible things to say (tip o’ the antlers to Piotrowski via email) about using the iPhone in a corporate environment.

Hard to believe, isn’t it? The Macalope is just as shocked as you are.

But, apparently the iPhone can cause your entire company to come crumbling to the ground almost instantaneously. And give all your employees syphilis. Or something.

“The device isn’t secure enough, nor is it designed to run with corporate systems,” he said.

Enderle has been running around his usual circuit of lazy journalists spreading the idea that the iPhone isn’t secure since the day it came out.

The only real basis for this argument seems to be the fact that because it will run QuickTime, show a variety of image types and do other multimedia tasks, those files can be used to compromise the iPhone the same way they can be used to compromise a PC or a Mac.

Sooo, it’s no more or less secure than a PC or a Mac. OK. [The Macalope is working on a piece on security which he hopes to post over the weekend.]

What about it “not being designed to run with corporate systems”? There’s some truth here. iTunes is not an enterprise-level application, many web-based business applications use Java which the iPhone doesn’t support and many businesses eschew 802.11 because it’s not as secure as good o’ Ethernet cable.

But Enderle’s foil in this article — Forrester’s Charles Golvin — doesn’t seem to know what the hell Enderle’s talking about. He thinks some Office functionality will quickly make its way to the Mac (hey, even TextEdit can read Word files) and notes that Exchange does IMAP and so does the iPhone, unlike RIM devices. So the iPhone could be a good corporate player.

To really try to scare corporate IT executives, Enderle decides to play a little buzzword bingo.

If executives insist on connecting iPhones, then the IT department has a duty to report the violation since it could mean that Sarbanes-Oxley or other compliance rules have been broken, Enderle said.

Ooh! Mention Sarbanes-Oxley! That’ll get ’em!

OK, now, the Macalope has not read Sarbanes-Oxley in its entirety, but he does know a bit about it and the whole point of it is putting in place proper controls that are properly documented. It obviously does not dictate which hardware or software you can use. If your business decided that what it needed to do to be successful is have every executive walk around with a live grenade in their hand, that would be fine under Sarbanes-Oxley as long as you had the proper controls in place (i.e. their hands would be duct taped closed, they’d be followed around by an admin assistant whose job it was to hold their hand closed, etc.).

Enderle is simply trying to use the issues of corporate security and policy as a club to try to bash the iPhone and get his name in another useless he said/she said article. Anyone who manages IT policy knows that the iPhone could just as easily be part of a policy as almost any other device. Enderle is simply assuming that business won’t make an Apple product part of their policy and that the only way it could conceivably get into an enterprise is from some rogue and rather stylish executives who might also be metrosexuals.

The point should be that no device that’s not an approved corporate standard (not just ones made by Apple) should be used for company business in an enterprise environment. The Macalope didn’t make this rule up and he has a lot to say about how enterprises tend to pick the least common denominator (Windows) as their corporate standard, but that’s the way this works, like it or not.

You could just as easily pick OS X and the iPhone as you could Windows and the Blackberry (or all four!) provided your policies and procedures covered those technologies.

Enderle’s one-trick pony really needs to be put down.

Comments
  • John Muir:

    “Enderle’s foil in this article…”

    No, no. Enderle keeps his foil in his hat.

  • Dearest Macalope.

    Thank you for taking another one for the team. It’s good to see you willing to go out and read that horseshit.

    I think I’ll just plug my ears and yell, “LALALALALALALALALALALA,” and pretend Enderle isn’t even talking.

    However, when I get back home, I’m going to write about the article just like I read it, too. Except I’m going to make up a bunch of stuff that really isn’t true, just for fun.

    It’s kind of fun being a troll for Apple-bashing buttheads.

  • SOX?

    Dear lord, save me from clueless morons using that like a magic spell.

  • >>“The device isn’t secure enough, nor is it designed to run with corporate systems,” he >>said.
    >
    >Enderle has been running around his usual circuit of lazy journalists spreading the idea >that the iPhone isn’t secure since the day it came out

    Wait.. wha?

    Did the iPhone get released when I wasn’t looking? Has Herr Enderle gotten his hands on a shipping unit and given it a security sweep? Did the guys from MOAB show him some exploits in the third party software on the iPhone? Did Maynor and Ellch give him their video of cracking an iPhone?

  • Joe:

    Well of course the iPhone is a hazard it’s down right dangerous, I would go as far as to say that the iPhone is in fact….. Deadly!!!!

    Why else was it in a glass tube at Macworld? It’s like one of those quarantine things…. I am surprised it did not have the green glow of radiation that you often see in cheesy Sci-Fi films and comic books.

    Besides If Rob Enderle is on this story it has to be true I suppose George Ou will have his own article up soon, and if these to behemoths of journalism say it’s not a safe phone and that its not in any way a business phone well then I guess it must be true after all, we read it on the internet.

  • Hey! I’m getting a lot of hate mail.

    Who is this guy pretending to be me? What is he using for brains, Malto Meal? Sounds to me like he’s fuller of shit than a stopped toilet in a Tijuana bus stop.

  • Dear Macalope, how about putting Enderle in the same category as Dvorak and not linking to his articles? I don’t think any of us are interested in reading Enderle’s crap.

  • Al:

    Rob is being well paid to spread FUD about the iPhone.

    A man has to feed his family. Give him a break.

  • James Bailey:

    I didn’t go to the article but I really want to know if Enderle also described how the iPhone would be a menace during an earthquake. The iMac is such a menace (apparently it will tip over and shower you with broken glass or something.) Anyway, now I’m also worried about the iPhone. Enderle is clearly a leading authority on computer safety during earthquakes.

  • RattyUK:

    Hey, Enderle has finally stepped over the line.

    He has created a whole new category. This is NOT FUD, but FUB.

    Fear, Uncertainty, Bullshit.

  • GeoK:

    Geez, what a week of Bovine Shcoladarity…

    Enderie, Booker, Gates, Ballmer – They’re flailing in a cesspool that’s a swirling, sucking, sinking eddy of despair.

  • geok has it nailed! it looks and smells like the old Microsoft Titanic has spotted some icebergs and is getting kinda nervous of the outcome. Oh what a grand Vista they have from the poop-deck!!

  • PS is Macalope related to the Talking Moose of yesteryear?

  • Smitty:

    I agree with David: don’t give this drivel the link.

    As a matter of fact, reduce the use of his name to prevent his rise in searches. Make an alias for him (like “Dufus”) at first mention, and refer to him that way for the rest of the article.

  • Clemencello:

    One minor issue with the iPhone and corporatesecurity is that many businesses don’t allow camera phones on the premises because of possible security breeches. Nokia tripped up on this a couple of years ago when their entire range came equipped with cameras for a while…

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