CIOs will look to new manufacturers for their work mobiles over the next five years, leaving behind the traditional default of Research in Motion (RIM), according to a new study published by Virgin Media Business today.
The study showed just 10% of the 500 CIOs it surveyed believed RIM's BlackBerry handsets would still be the dominant force in the corporate environment by 2017, with 37% claiming Apple would take its crown as the business phone of choice.
Samsung also fared well with the enterprise level customers, with 30% believing its smartphones would be the market leader in the coming years.
However, just 1% thought Sony would make its mark in the smartphone – less than the rumoured handset from Facebook that hasn't even seen the light of day yet.
"There's a huge amount of choice out there for CIOs looking for smartphones, even more so now the [latest] iPhone has launched," said Tony Grace, chief operating officer (COO) of Virgin Media Business.
"It can be difficult to work out which model works best with your workforce [but] what's clear is that Apple and Samsung are way ahead of the others at the moment."
Not all hope is lost for RIM, however, as its tablet device – the BlackBerry PlayBook – recently won the praises of a security firm as the safest choice for deployment within a business.
Context Information Security criticised the Samsung Galaxy Tab as the least secure, due to its lacklustre file system and absence of encryption for data, while the Apple iPad was deemed too easy to jailbreak.
However, the PlayBook's bridge application singled it out as the best option for a corporate bring-your-own-device (BYOD) roll-out.
