In the corporate world it seems like everybody these days is doing business from their cell phones, but which option is right for you. There used to be only one name you heard when it came to cell phones for business use, Blackberry. RIM has done such a good job of marketing the Blackberry as an all-in-one corporate device made by and used for the corporate world. But what if the Blackberry just isn’t your thing? What if the buttons are too small, the menus are too confusing or maybe you just don’t want to be like everyone else in your company? What do you do then? Have you considered an iPhone?

I have been using Blackberry cell phones in my business for years until recently, that being when the iPhone was released. I have nothing against Blackberry as a phone and RIM as a company, I never had any problems as far as service or the phones not working how they were supposed to, but the Blackberry interface always annoyed me. I’m a very tech savvy person when it comes to cell phones, computers, and all sorts of new technology so it’s not like I’m some old guy that has never used a computer before that is now forced to use a Blackberry (ala Michael Scott in The Office), but I just never liked the way things were setup and presented in the Blackberry interface. I understand that it was created for the corporate world and that’s their excuse for trying to jam so many options into pop-up menus and sub-menus, etc. It just has sort of a clunky feeling to it, which always made me not want to use it, but it wasn’t all bad.

There are some things that the Blackberry offers that the iPhone does not, although the iPhone is trying to change their software to catch up with the rest of the world. For example, Copy and Paste. If you’re going to try to market a cell phone to corporate users you’re going to need to implement some sort of copy and paste function. I don’t know how many times I was on the road and had to either send an email address to someone or copy a snippet of text out of one email and paste it into another email (since I didn’t want to forward the entire thing), or copy/paste passwords for people. The copy and paste function may not seem like it has much use to most users, but believe me, I don’t think I could have lived without it at the time. Another one of the great features is Push E-mail. In the corporate world these days e-mail is extremely important and sometimes a sale or partnership can rest on them (granted I still think people should just use the phone, but it’s starting to move away from that). Push email is the ability for a server to “push” a new email message to your mobile phone as opposed to having the handset request new email at certain intervals, usually every 15 minutes. The iPhone is starting to implement this feature with some email services, but it still doesn’t have them all worked out. And lastly one of my favorite things about the Blackberry (which I miss dearly) is the Blackberry Messenger application. I didn’t use it so much for business, but the ability to text other people with Blackberry’s without using text messages, that can be pretty costly, as well as sending pictures, etc through it, was an amazing addition to the phone. Obviously it has more use in a personal setting, but I can still see some situations where it could be useful in a business sense.

Now onto the iPhone. Apple has really outdone themselves with this piece of technology and I have no doubt that one day it will overtake Blackberry in terms of corporate use, but it’s not quite there yet. The iPhone has a very simple interface with a lot of potential, it’s very easy to use, easy to find things and extremely easy to figure out if you’re not that tech savvy. All of these things are great for the normal user who just wants to pick up a phone and go without having to spend hours trying to figure out how everything works. And that is why I chose the iPhone over the Blackberry for my new corporate phone. The mail app is also 100x better than the Blackberry mail app, it works well, has all the necessary functions and looks nicer overall. I do wish it had copy and paste functions, but I haven’t had too much trouble getting around that issue, especially if you jailbreak the phone. Apple will be introducing copy and paste into their latest version of the iPhone software, version 3.0 later this summer, so that will take care of that. Push email still needs a bit of work, but at least i have the ability to force the phone to check the server for new email, where the Blackberry can’t do that.

So which one should you choose? Ultimately that decision is up to you. If you need to be connected to your work’s network and get work email instantly without delay and most of your office uses Blackberry’s, then I would suggest the Blackberry. Just be wary of the learning curve that comes with some of the models. A few of the more recent models of Blackberry’s are a little easier to figure out due to re-doing their operating system. For example, the Blackberry Bold and the Blackberry Storm use a new version of the OS that looks a lot better than say the Pearl or the old Curves. If I had to choose a Blackberry, one of those 2 would be my top choice, it all depends if you want a touch screen or not. As for the iPhone, it’s currently a great phone for personal use yet it’s still lacking in the way of corporate features, but that’s not to say Apple isn’t working on it. I like the iPhone for the sheer amount of possibilities that come with it. With the introduction of the App store, there are literally thousands of things you can do with the phone and while Blackberry did (or is) recently launched their version of the App Store, it’s still going to take some time until we start to see good quality applications.

And if you’re a little leary about which one you may or may not like, you can always check out sites like http://www.unlockedfone.com to test one out before you commit. Just remember to find out which one your company supports could be the deciding factor. Don’t get over anxious and get one before you know it will work correctly.