Apple's "Stealth" Approach to Enterprise Adoption is Working

The " iPhone is changing the way companies across the globe use mobile devices for work," says Peter Oppenheimer, Apple Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President. That perhaps unremarkable comment nevertheless is interesting because Apple never has gone much out of its way to sell to enterprise and other business users, preferring to sell directly to end users, and simply relying on those users to do missionary work inside their organizations.


"In addition to accessing e-mail, calendar and contacts, many of these companies are developing and deploying mission-critical iPhone apps to help improve productivity and give employees secure and immediate access to information anywhere," said Oppenheimer. 


"Some new examples include Royal Dutch Shell, Credit Suisse, Kimberly-Clark, St. Jude Medical, Providian, Teradata, Nike, [indiscernible] and Facebook," Oppenheimer said.


The same pattern can be seen for iPad adoption by businesses of all sizes. 


"Nearly all of the top companies within major Fortune 500 markets including pharma, manufacturing, hospitality, consumer products, financial services, healthcare and retail are actively using iPad to improve workflows, business processes and customer engagements," said Oppenheimer.


"Real estate agents at Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's access sales presentations and use custom iPad apps in the field," he noted. "Retail chains such as Bed Bath & Beyond use iPads to deliver key business metrics on the sales floor."


"Wineries are using iPads in their vineyards to call up weather data and soil profiles, record quality assessments and make decisions on the spot about whether to harvest their grapes," Oppenheimer added. "And in this past quarter, Chinese airline, EVA, has also deployed iPads to pilots and crew for flight manuals, documentation and training."


The Denver Broncos have stopped using paper playbooks and now use iPads instead.