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BYO Duopoly

Cisco killed the Cius. Cisco and Avaya (and most of their enterprise competitors) have sold closed (proprietary) phones to their customers for years, so there was a reasonable degree of logic that a closed tablet would also be attractive. We will never know for sure because the primary reason the Cius failed wasn't because it was closed--but because it wasn't an iPad.

Big and smart companies have tried to deal with the iPad--HP, Amazon, RIM, Cisco, Avaya, Samsung, Microsoft?, Dell?, Google, and HTC have been unable to even dent the armor. All of the iPad alternative sales combined total a footnote in the world of tablets. It's a tough act to follow for the would-be competitors. They must offer some combination of pricing, versatility, and capability to outshine the iPad. Competitors can't win with lower price on comparable device--not only does Apple have huge discounts associated with huge quantities, but it makes so much on app sales that it could even afford to sell iPads at a loss. The Appstore has unimaginable number of apps, making the iPad highly versatile. If a new application store was created tomorrow and added 100 apps a day, it would still take over 13 years to catch up.

The capability front isn't easy either--Apple's R&D is well funded and innovative--the display and battery life are amazing in the iPad3. Thanks to the iPhone and iPod, Apple has a decade of experience and maturity with ioS and its manufacturing processes.

So I hope you like the iPad, because there aren't really many other choices. Personally, I think the iPad is an amazing device, but it also has some huge flaws--particularly for the enterprise. Normally, competition would correct these flaws--either by the competitors directly or via competitive pressure on the incumbent. But with a de facto monopoly today, Apple will decide how the iPad evolves on its terms. Google's Android is in the best place to create a duopoly, but that outcome is far from certain.

One big area that needs iImprovement is privacy and security. This is exactly the area that Cisco was targeting with the Cius (and Avaya with its ADVD). There are huge security holes/concerns with smartphones and iPads. IBM recently banned Siri because it isn't clear what recordings are retained or how they are used. Apple doesn't provide any warnings or indications of what apps access what personal information--including stored photos, location, access to social networks, and personal contacts. These so called smart devices are a form of electronic tattle tales--unable to keep a secret. A free travel app sounds nice, but exactly why it needs access to personal contacts isn't self evident.

There were some valuable lessons in the now removed "Girls Around Me" application -that helped people find girls near them. The girls that were featured in the app were unknowing participants as the app creators were exploiting a hole in FourSquare's API. The girls thought they were checking-in with dreams of possibly becoming a site's "mayor," but instead were turned into the main attraction for guys on the prowl. Location awareness enables 911, but the truth is that a lot more people are interested in other people's locations.

In fact, business people should be aware that just sending location information could be a violation of an NDA! Most iusers don't realize how much information they are giving out. Give something like a banking or photo application access to your camera and it can view and upload all of your stored photos (which contain location information by default).

Next page: We are under surveillance

We are under surveillance--our activities, relationships, location, and topics of interest are being catalogued. It is raising lots of ethical and legal issues on the personal level--but enterprise security isn't a legitimate subject for experimentation. Big security leaks can kill a brand, harm a trust, and pose major liabilities. We are entrusting others with our secrets and confidential information, and half the time we don't even know who exactly we are trusting and what we are trusting them with. Even if you trust Apple, Google or FourSquare with your private information, what if those firms get breached or get served a court order?

Most of us have all sorts of confidential data on our devices, and we assume it is safe. We assume that various games or other "free" apps are totally separate because they should not require access to content like contacts or location. It's a great theory, but wrong.

Even if you don't mind sharing, is it your decision? Consider client/attorney or patient/doctor information or emails covering non-public work information. When a friend gives you their contact information, are they agreeing that it's ok to share it publicly? Most if this "phone" data appears only to be stored on the phone, but is probably being replicated in multiple data centers.

We are accustomed to a certain amount of consumer protection, but those laws evolved over decades--no such maturity or protection exists over personal information. Installing an app, agreeing to its terms and conditions, may mean all this "private" information is ok to transmit. If that happens to involve corporate or customer secrets, the enterprise will be responsible for negligence--regardless of who owns that device.

Apple doesn't demonstrate any obligation to secure or warn users. The Appstore provides no warning about which apps access what information. Apple does nothing to curtail the black market around stolen iDevices such as blocking reactivation. Apple doesn't even make it easy to put owner information on the lock screen (resulting in airlines warehousing hundreds of lost iPads). Any of these efforts by Apple would limit sales.

Getting data on/off the device isn't easy either. Users must either associate the iPad with a single copy of iTunes on a desktop computer (yet another consumer app with a separate terms of service and privacy policy), or utilize a variety of cloud apps which involves up/down loading the content over the public Internet to various cloud servers. The iPad does not support file transfers over a standard USB connection, or via an external memory card.

Android tablets present an interesting, though evidently non-compelling alternative. A lopsided duopoly is expected to form sometime. Google is working hard to create a solution that can compete with the iPad so it can give it away. Think about that, the world's largest advertising venue is working hard to take on a paid product with a free operating system. As ominous as that sounds, it will be an improvement over a monopoly.

Customers win with competition, but the customers are too enamoured of the iPad to be thinking of such details. The current market is clamoring for the iPad, a device that can't accept file transfers via USB, has no standard i/o whatsoever, has no wired connectivity, no third party batteries, no native encryption or remote management, a vibrant black market, and an application ecosystem that requires approval and commission. But at least it isn't proprietary.

Dave Michels is a Contributing Editor and Indepedent Analyst at TalkingPointz.com