The Apple iPhone has had a dramatic impact on the mobile phone industry, and the new Google G1 is also aiming to take a slice of this market. So far, however, these devices are targeted primarily at personal users, but the question is, “What role, if any, will these gadgets have in the business environment for applications such as mobile BI?

At the recent SAP TechEd, I had the opportunity to address this topic with John Schwartz, CEO of Business Objects. I made the point that mobile computing was enjoying more success in Europe than the US, and asked him if he thought the Apple iPhone would change this. He agreed that mobile computing use was higher in Europe, but felt the majority of this was still for personal purposes. He noted that mobile BI was seeing growth in both the US and Europe. However, he said the device of choice for mobile BI was still the Blackberry, because its architecture was more suited to this type of processing. So far, he said, Business Objects has seen little demand for iPhone support.

Donald Cambell, CTO of Cognos, took the same position when I asked him this question at a recent IBM Cognos analyst meeting. He said IT is still primarily supplying Backberry’s for business use, but in some cases IT will support personally purchased iPhones. He said the iPhone still doesn’t have the promised capability to run processes in the background, which limits its use for BI. He noted that the new Google G1 has an excellent development platform, and if the device is successful it could have a major impact on mobile business applications. He also made the interesting point that Windows Mobile was the preferred mobile platform for packaged embedded solutions used in locations such as hospitals, for example.

I would be interested to hear from other people about how their organization is deploying mobile BI solutions.