Best mobile phone/service for startups

For years, RIM's Blackberry devices were the corporate standard. Today, many businesses deploy smartphones running Google Android, Apple iOS, or Windows Phone as well.

What are the pros and cons of each platform for startups?

Would you allow employees pick and choose their favorite phones?

We recently had all of our corporate phones on a single account with a standard model Blackberry. The original though behind this decision was that money could be saved though contact negotiations, leveraging our buying power, and ease of support. After reading some Gardner papers and internal discussions, we have converted from a corporate liable philosophy to an individual liable reimbursement philosophy. Each individual user can select there cell phone provider and cell phone. They are reimbursed a predetermined amount each moth after they submit their invoice.

After the initial conversion 61% chose a Blackberry, 27% chose an iPhone, 6% chose Android, and 5% other. So far we have not had any major issues with any of these platforms. I believe our users primarily chose the Blackberry because it is what they where used to and it has the ability to tether (Phone as a Modem).

The blackberry works great for email, calendar, and contacts when used with a Blackberry Enterprise Server connected to Exchange. The browser on the Blackberry is lacking. Users can also use there phone as a modem. This is a great benefit for the road warriors.

The iphone works great for email, calendar, and contacts when used with Exchange Active Sync. The web browser on the iPhone is incredible. However, AT&T currently does not allow tethering (Phone as a Modem) on the iPhone.

The Android Droid works great for email, calendar, and contacts when used with Exchange Active Sync. Verizon currently does not allow tethering (Phone as a Modem) with this phone. They have said they will allow this some time early in 2010.

There are some technical things that need to be considered before making this decision. Determine the compatibility of your email server and email client with these phones. Depending on your email server you may need to purchase additional hardware, software, and user licenses to be compatible. Additional hardware and software also may mean additional support.

Personally I use an iPhone. For business use, one of the top end Blackberries is just as good. I would let users choose their own phone. However, it was vital for us to level set expectations up front. It was also very important for us to work with the users to ensure they chose a phone and service that met their needs.

Here are some points why a business user may not want to use an Android device:

Android does not encrypt any data internally so if the device is lost any other party can have access to the information inside:

• Android Issue 3748: Add support for partition/block device encryption
• Android Issue 11211: Android too insecure - Encryption of the SDcard is crucial

Android data like Contacts, Calendar and Gmail is kept unencrypted on Google servers so Google and US Intelligence Agencies have access to it. There are many non-US companies that do not like the US having access to their data:

• Google Admits Handing over European User Data to US Intelligence Agencies

There is no way to do a Full Backup and there is data that is not synced to the cloud, so it creates problems to keep the data safe:

• Android Issue 1106: No way to backup or restore on-device data (sms, most application data, installed apps and settings)
• Android Issue 2907: Google Bookmarks should be integrated with the browser

Many people need an spell checker:

• Android Issue 10332: Retrospective spell checking on all input fields as an OS feature (input device agnostic)

Although Android is now a Google company it has the worst internal search of most Mobile OSes:

• Android Issue 3732: Search Improve contact search

It cannot even search the calendar:

• Android Issue 2518: Calendar app has no search.

No proxy support:

• Android Issue 1273: IP Proxy Settings for Wifi Network

There is initial proxy support on Android 3.1 (only available for tablets) but not even per connection:

• Android Issue 4386: Add proxy options for each individual Internet connection

Some very useful features are not available:

• Android Issue 4575: Phone number linking to dialer
• Android Issue 1027: More granular notification tone, volume, and repeat controls
• Android Issue 6547: Screen shots
• Android Issue 6399: Save current web page

This is the comparison where I extracted all of the data: Mobile OS comparison Right now, if you care, you must have a BlackBerry (although the iPhone is quite close to feature parity to BlackBerry). BlackBerry may not look cool but has many of the features you may need.

According to the latest researches, the best smartphones of 2012 are iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S III, Google Nexus 4 and HTC One X. All of them are great for business. Here is a list of smartphones you may check http://www.businessinsider.com/best-smartphones-2012-11?op=1 What about BlackBerry, not sure if it's worth to be bought. While it had an iconic status among corporate elite a few years ago, BlackBerry has been forced today to mingle with the masses. BlackBerry devices are very helpful to those who write long texts. If your friends and business partners do not have BlackBerry devices, you will not be able to make the most of BlackBerry.

Every device you purchase for your employees is a device that your organization must support. As a startup, you likely don't have the infrastructure or staff to support everything well, so I recommend that you choose one platform and stick with it. Everyone on the same platform.