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Comment by pinaceae | Hacker News Reader

this is why android will not succeed in the corporate space. might not be their target anyhow, but who knows.

IT departments in big companies love stable, homogenous platforms. buy an iphone anywhere on this world, it is exactly the same. same OS, same apps, etc. the upgrade path is known, predictable and again, completely global.

hence the success of the iPhone in that space, killing off RIM. hence the success of iPads, killing off classic Windows tablets and even notebooks. and suddenly you see macbook airs popping up in meetings and airport lounges. because once you're on iPhone and iPad - why not take the plunge? a macbook air is the same anywhere on this globe...

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Your comment is kind of funny because I remember when people bitched about the iPhone not being suitable for the enterprise.

What people are missing is that when a product gets really popular amongst consumers, the enterprise will follow regardless of its shortcomings.

Plus, Android does have advantages for the enterprise. Like its integration with the other Google services. For instance I love that my whole contacts list is backed-up in Google Apps. And the Gmail app on Android is the best Gmail app available on mobile phones.

It's a pity that I'll have to wait for an Android 4 upgrade for my Galaxy S. I blame Samsung for this as I buy from them for the hardware (which is awesome), not for their shitty "additions" to Android. This is why my next phone I buy will be a Nexus, or whatever Google's next blessed phone will be called.

What people are missing is that when a product gets really popular amongst consumers, the enterprise will follow regardless of its shortcomings.

Do you have any other examples of this? I hadn't really heard this before the iPhone or iPad.

I can think of Mac OS X, Gmail, Windows 95, Firefox, Chrome, GitHub.

Of course, such a thing only happens when there's overlap. There's not much use for an XBox or a Wii in a company, with the exception of having a fun and games room as an added benefit to employees.

But when a product is useful for the enterprise and popular amongst consumers, it will enter that space, simply because enthusiastic employees can move mountains. See for instance Linux's growth in the ninties, in spite of Windows, IBM AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, or other OSes that were definitely more ready for the enterprise. Basically an immature Unix clone, that can't even keep binary compatibility between versions, is killing all proprietary Unix distributions, except OS X.

I had to wait more than 10 months for official Gingerbread to come to my Galaxy S (Epic 4G), but in the case of ICS not even the Nexus S 4G is on board yet so I wouldn't really fault Samsung or be so quick to buy a Nexus device in this case.

Depending on which Galaxy S you're on, look into CM9. Despite its early stages, it's amazingly stable. I've been on ICS without any problems for awhile now.

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