iPhone news not enough for O.C. companies to switch - Decision Toolbox features on OCRegister.com March 6th, 2008 by Sonya Smith Today’s Apple announcements centered on two things: giving out instructions on how to write programs for the iPhone and announcing that the iPhone in June will be using Microsoft’s Exchange and ActiveSync in a move meant to attract business users. On that news, small business reporter Jan Norman helped by asking some Orange County companies if the they plan to now switch over to the Apple phone.  NOT LOOKING TO USE iPHONES: First, she heard from Peter Shea, chairman of Entrepreneur Media in Irvine (Entrepreneur magazine and entrepreneur.com). His company buys Blackberries for all sales representatives and executives of the company. He said “what we have works.” Shea also said that a friend of his has an iPhone and Shea likes the phone. Still, he says the phone is a bit too fragile for his regular, rough use. He will not switch to Apple until the iPhone is less fragile and can work throughout Europe.  NO NEED FOR iPHONES: Norman also heard from Ronald Stein, vice president of business development for Principal Technical Services, Inc. The temp company for highly-skilled engineers, employs a small central staff while working with hundreds of engineers. Stein said that his employees have cell phones without e-mail access. Rather than buying smart phones, his employees use wireless remote access from laptops for most functions, including reading and composing e-mails and accessing files remotely.  ALREADY USE iPHONES: And, a third company, Decision Toolbox, already uses iPhones. The local recruiting company’s CEO Kim Shepherd said that iPhones are given out by the firm to members of the Leadership team who then give out the phones as prizes for staff. In response to today’s iPhone attempts to sway business users, Shepherd wrote: “The Microsoft deal would not really sway us one way or the other. We are iPhone fans and have been since it’s first day of release!”   # # #

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