Once the mobile device of choice for global enterprise, the Blackberry appears to be losing market share in 2011-- at least according to the latest Mobile Workforce report from mobile services seller iPass.
The smartphone enterprise employees prefer? The iPhone, with 45% market share, up from 31.1% in 2010. In comparison, the Blackberry has just 32.2% share (down from 34.5% in 2010).
Android is also slowly gaining market share, with 21.3% share for 2011 (up from just 11.3% in 2010).
Tablet ownership is also on the rise among mobile employees-- from 33% in Q2 2011 to 44% in Q4 2011.
The survey involves mobile device (smartphones, tablets and laptops) using employees from 1100 global companies. According to iPass, more companies are relaxing their mobile device policies as more employees take their smartphones and tablets to the office.
Whereas around 66% of companies provisioned smartphones to employees in 2010, that percentage in 2011 is down to 58%, with 42% of employees having individually liable smartphones.
What do employees use their mobile devices for? The unkind would say either Angry Birds or Facebook ("the new smoke break" according to iPass), but the survey shows mobile devices acutally help boost productivity, with only an average of 28 minutes being "wasted" daily on distractions of the social networking variety.
iPass concludes IT departments will find their role rapidly changing post-2012, shifting focus on providing a backbone (negotiating rates, ensuring access exits and removing barriers) to the rising "mobilocracy" of mobile employees.
