iPhone Insecure Because It’s A Closed System?

If we gave points for techno punditry idiocy, we’d run out of points, unable to manufacture a sufficient quantity.

Who would be ahead when we stopped the competition? Guess who? Our old hack nemsis, Rob Enderle.

What’s he up to these days? I thought you’d never ask. Actually, Rob hasn’t changed at all, so is up to nothing new.

From what I can tell, he’s merely spewing the same line of pundiocity crapola he’s been dishing out to media and clients since he learned to speak.

This time it’s a good one. What is it this time? Get ready. Sit down. Prepare yourself. Ready?

Uh, huh. That’s what he said. But it actually gets worse. I know what you’re thinking. “Is that possible?” Yes.

You see, we’re dealing with a mature techno pundit who writes with little regard to the message, no logic, and less accuracy. The iPhone is bad for business, says Rob. How is that really possible? People in business use cell phones all the time, right?

Clearly, Rob is aiming his latest illogical barrage at the iPhone by connecting it to the limited market of “smart phones” such as Blackberry and Treo, and the even more limited market where those phones are managed by an IT department.

Granted, there are plenty of such phones and customers, but with a target of 10-million iPhones to be sold by the end of 2008, Apple clearly is not aiming at that “smart phone” market. Perhaps a “smarter phone” market will be created.

Regardless, without facts, technological specifications, or even holding an iPhone in his hand, techno pundit supremo Rob Enderle coughs up the following:

The iPhone isn’t secure enough? How so? How do you know? Quoting Enderle, techno pundit Poonam Khanna, writing in IT Business, writes about the penalties executives may face when trying to connect their iPhones to the company’s network. Could they go to jail?

Charles Golvin of Forrester Research, in an obvious attempt to improve their shoddy reputation for researching all things Apple, thinks otherwise. Score an extra two points for Forrester. Golvin says:

Duh. And the iPhone, so far, does not allow third party applications, unlike Microsoft-based so-called Smart Phones, which could compromise security on corporate networks.

So, in summarizing Rob, the iPhone is insecure and corporate executives should be prevented from using it under some kind of penalty.

But, the iPhone is closed to third party applications and Apple isn’t aiming for that part of the “smart phone” market anyway, hence, no security problems, right?

Without third party applications, and with standard and secure connectivity to Exchange Servers via POP and IMAP, where’s the insecurity IT departments need to be afraid of?

In reality, IT departments, executives using so-called ‘corporate systems’, and readers of Enderle’s endless supply of techno babble, have only one thing to fear, one thing to worry about, one thing to avoid. It’s the same one thing.

Avoid Rob Enderle and anything to do with the so-called Enderle Group. All that can happen is this—you will waste previous, valuable minutes of your life, learn nothing of value or benefit, and perhaps wear a whole in your hair scratching your head trying to understand that which cannot be understood.

You know what I would like to see more of from techno pundits in the media? No more insidious Apple bashing, no more funded-by-Microsoft praising, not even balance. I’d like to see accuracy. It’s in short supply these days.