When the iPod really started to gather momentum, people started talking about the halo effect. The idea was that the iPod would be an ambassador for Apple-ness, and that people’s positive experiences of using an iPod would make them think favourably of Apple’s other products.
(I was never, by the way, sold on the idea that a PC user would buy an iPod, proclaim it utterly without flaw, and immediately go out and buy a Mac. I think the halo effect was much more subtle and slow-burning, creating an affinity and respect for Apple as a brand and at most making people realise that Apple existed and that it might begin to figure in people’s purchasing decisions.)
The iPhone, though, is destined to be Halo Effect 2.0, and where the iPod helped the company’s renaissance in the consumer market, the iPhone will do the same for business and enterprise.
The new firmware for the iPhone, due in June, not only offers full support for the sort of corporate-level Exchange servers we see in SMB and enterprise markets – with push email and calendaring, and remote wipe – but at least in theory overtakes the market leader RIM’s BlackBerry solution by making a direct connection to the server rather than being funnelled through the company’s apparently vulnerable NOC.
All of which will sweep aside many of the concerns that CTOs and board-level execs have to the highly desirable little iPhone, which should mean that when the decisions are being taken about what smartphones to roll out within a company, the iPhone can figure in the discussions.
And when the iPhone gets into the hands of management-level execs and IT directors wedded to Microsoft, the Apple trademarks of ease of use and polish will slowly begin to soften reactionary anti-Apple sentiment.
When an IT guy sees how well the iPhone integrates, he’ll perhaps begin to question his long-held, inaccurate assumptions about Macs being incompatible with everything else on his network. And when an MD starts eulogising about how easy her iPhone is to use, she’ll be less likely to dig her heels in when a couple of solitary Mac enthusiasts in the company ask if they can be bought MacBooks rather than ThinkPads. And so the ripples spread.
The iPod’s halo effect was a grass-roots, bottom-up thing; the iPhone’s halo effect will be a top-down process that starts with IT directors and management, but it could mean that at last the Mac is taken seriously as a business platform. And that would be huge.
