Hardware & Equipment | 26 Mar 2010 :
Love them or loathe them, iPhones are now available on the Vodafone network in Ireland. The 8Gb 3G, 16Gb 3Gs and 32Gb 3Gs models are now available.
While the overwhelming majority of iPhone users are consumers, the trend for users to carry just device has brought the iPhone into the business fold to the point where it cannot be ignored. In recognition of this, Oracle has developed an iPhone application for its E-Business Suite, SAP has developed a Business Objects Explorer application and IBM has a Domino e-mail client for the sleek Apple number.
For most business users, e-mail is the critical application and there is support for Exchange e-mail via ActiveSync secure push e-mail. Each Vodafone supplied iPhone comes with the Data Wizard application to remotely configure the iPhone to work with office desktop e-mail.
Small, medium and large enterprise price plans are included. The 16Gb iPhone 3Gs is available to small business free on a 300 minutes and 300 text deal.
The Control Solo Plus deal allows users a free 16Gb 3Gs model with unlimited talk for €99 per month, or unlimited talk and text for €109.
Medium business users can get the iPhone on Vodafone Control with unlimited calls for €35 per user, plus 1Gb of data.
Larger businesses can add 1Gb data plans to existing deals for €8.26, or 10Gb for €16.45.
The real boon for the iPhone is the application store that now contains around 150,000 third party applications. While admittedly, some are to make your iPhone sound like a light sabre, there are a plethora of personal productivity as well as business client applications available to turn the iPhone into a business tool.
www.vodafone.ie/iphone