News

iPhone Won't Fly at NASA

NASA has determined that the Apple iPhone is not "enterprise ready," according to Information Week on Tuesday.

A NASA document, minutes from an ODIN meeting, said that the Apple iPhone has been found "not to be enterprise ready." (ODIN is the group that manages NASA IT procurement.) BlackBerrys were mentioned as the alternative.

No other information was provided, NASA didn't respond to IW's inquiries, and there was only speculation as to why NASA came to that conclusion.

So far, Apple has been selling the iPhone exclusively to individuals who have their own purchase authority. In some cases, small businesses have embraced the iPhone for what it can do, not what it cannot do.

While companies like Synchronica and Visto have announced Microsoft Exchange support, there are likely other considerations that would affect enterprise adoption, such as mobile security, removable batteries, and Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T, all mentioned in the Information Week article.

While NASA has a high-tech profile, their administrative operations are those of the Federal Government. For NASA to make this recommendation is not at all surprising, and many other organizations, federal and civil, may be making similar determinations. Of course, that is not to say that, in time, the iPhone and its successors won't evolve. Meanwhile, however, it's been very clear who the target customer is for the iPhone 1.0: enthusiastic individuals with a credit card in their pocket.

6 comments from the community.

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A guest said: (hide)

Perhaps if the iPhone contained a built in flask...

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brett_x said:

member since 24 Jan 2006 with 307 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

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Guest wrote:
Perhaps if the iPhone contained a built in flask...

NICE!

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1668 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

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Guest wrote:
Perhaps if the iPhone contained a built in flask...

Man that's cold.

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yakirz said:

member since 22 Nov 2002 with 435 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

LOL

Actually, I'm not enterprise ready, either. I have a little too much free will

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 971 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

A flask and a diaper.

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A guest said: (hide)

Well,

NASA is the agency that "standardized" on MS Excel even though knowing about the large number of calculation bugs (both arithmetic and statistical) it has. So, no surprise; nothing to see here. Move along.

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