Bye-bye Treo, Hello iPhone! Why I Chose the iPhone.
After an exhaustive amount of research, testing, and piloting, a decision was made to move 60 Treo users to the iPhone. Interestingly, this was not an easy decision, and was one of the more difficult decisions made recently. Part of this was due to dealing with staff who anticipated the iPhone, and there was certainly some pent-up demand. Added to the fact I was somewhat resistant to the entire iPhone mania recently, and I am not a big fan of locked down proprietary systems, like Apple. Some background here:
We implemented a Treo smartphone solution 4 years ago, with Good Technology as the over-the-air message delivery system. At the time, this was a sound decision, and the Treo devices were arguably the leading smartphone back then with some advantages over Blackberry devices. However, it was clear that Palm was no longer a leader in the handset area, and likely a sinking ship.
One of the smartest moves was to invite staff to provide feedback about their existing Treo 650 and 680 devices, in addition to comments for their next smartphone. (I used an online service called Survey Monkey). I had a great response rate and it assisted in narrowing our options. Staff enjoyed a touch screen device, which limited RIM’s involvement due to their lack of touch screen devices (this was before the Storm). Staff also mentioned they used their devices primarily for calling, e-mail, calendar and contacts. Most did not enjoy the Treo’s bulky size, keyboard or limited web surfing, and as one respondent said “for crapping out”. [Read more →]
