Major Banks Give Employees Choice of iPhone or BlackBerry

Standard Chartered bankers are now being given a choice in which smartphone they would like to use. The moneylender is giving its corporate BlackBerry users the choice to switch over to the iPhone for their business dealings; this could be bad news for BlackBerry.

“If more companies switch to the iPhone, this is of course bad news for [Research in Motion],” said Lu Chialin, an IT industry analyst at Macquarie Securities in Taipei. “However, it will take a long time for companies to do their own internal testing before deciding to change, so it will be a while before it has any effect on RIM.”

The BlackBerry has been the leader in corporate phone services pretty much from its inception; being the device of choice for bankers and executives who need regular access to email and Internet services outside the office.

Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) has also launched an initiative to offer its staff the choice of BlackBerry or iPhone to access corporate email.

“This initiative is not intended to replace the BlackBerry. Rather, we want to provide our colleagues with another option to access their office email and sync their contacts, notes and calendar while on the move,” said Peter Koh, head of technology infrastructure at OCBC. “Our colleagues can continue to enjoy the features and content available on their iPhone without the hassle of carrying another device in order to access office email.”

BlackBerry has nothing to worry about for now, as it will take a while to get all the testing out of the way for these switchovers to take place. And by that time, who knows, maybe bankers will have found a new toy… Google’s Android anyone?

As reported by: Reuters