Apple has added a wealth of features in iPhone 2.0 software to make it enterprise ready. While arguments linger on the suitability of the iPhone for enterprise and comparisons to the BlackBerry continue, for those IT managers who want to properly deploy the iPhone, Ryan Fass at Computerworld has launched a detailed series on Wednesday on the specifics of how to do just that.
Mr. Fass, known for his deeply technical and detailed articles on Apple technology, has delved into the tools and protocols for business activation. For starters, IT managers need to be aware of Apple’s managed preferences architecture, how to activate user phones in the IT department, configure according to company policies, and then distribute the iPhone to users.
“For many enterprises, the ideal option is likely to be centralized iPhone activation, particularly in an Exchange environment where user e-mail and calendar data is synced directly to the Exchange server rather than requiring sync with a workstation,” Mr. Faas noted.
Apple provides a tool, called the Mac OS X iPhone Configuration Utility that allows the IT administrator to set up a wide range of options: iPhone passcode, configuration of Exchange or IMAP/POP e-mail accounts, VPN configuration (for PPTP, L2TP and IPSec/Cisco VPNs), some configuration for access to Wi-Fi networks and the installation of certificates on the phone, Mr. Faas explained.
As a result, the administrator can maintain a database of every deployed iPhone, its options, and user and device information. It’s also possible to track the corporate applications that have been installed.
In the rest of the in-depth four page article, Mr. Fass delves into how to create profiles and the various options.
The article, more of a starter tutorial than a review, according to the author, nevertheless points out some of the perceived weaknesses in Apple’s approach. For example, updates are not automatically pushed to the iPhone without the user’s consent — the user can still elect not to respond to the updates. [At their own career peril, perhaps.] In addition, there is no way for an iPhone managed in this fashion to push out App Store software.
For those IT managers who are planning to deploy the iPhone in a highly managed fashion, this article is an essential introduction to the tools and architecture Apple has put in place.