Research In Motion used this week’s BlackBerry World to make some important announcements: The company launched two new handsets (the Bold 9900 and 9930), outlined a deal to integrate Microsoft’s Bing with BlackBerry OS and trumpeted the acquisition of software-maker Ubitexx to help businesses manage devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. But as I watched the proceedings in Orlando, Fla., play out, I became convinced that it’s Apple who is about to own the mobile enterprise.

That may seem outlandish, I know. Apple’s historical focus — and success — is on the consumer market rather than the business sector. Apple continues to quietly expand into the corporate world, though, thanks largely to its appeal to end users who are buying iPhones and iPads and taking them to work. Good Technology recently said iOS devices accounted for roughly 70 percent of its new activiations during the first quarter of 2011 — more than twice the number of Android gadgets Good activated. (Good is a competitor of RIM and doesn’t support BlackBerry.)

Other signs of Apple’s potential dominance in the enterprise include:

1. BlackBerry OS is old and there are still no QNX handsets. The days of BlackBerry being the device of choice among the business class have ended. End users are increasingly determining which devices they use for work, and they’re opting for consumer-targeted devices that run newer, slicker operating systems. RIM recently said it expects a shortfall in BlackBerry sales, leading to a 10 percent plunge in its stock. QNX looks promising, but the new handsets are powered by BlackBerry 7, and as my colleague Kevin C. Tofel noted, they aren’t enough to lure users away from the iPhone.
2. Apple’s iOS is ready for business. While the platform once had some crucial shortcomings, Forrester said last year that “most enterprises can use Apple mobile enterprises securely.” IOS clearly doesn’t offer the kind of iron-clad security that, say, would be necessary for Barack Obama, but it now supports email encryption, one-second remote device wipe and other management policies IT departments demand, such as wireless app distribution and improved email support. And businesses are responding: Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said last month that 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPhones, and 75 percent are testing or deploying iPads.
3. Apple still owns the tablet market. The iPad accounted for a whopping 85 percent of worldwide tablet sales in 2010, according to recent data from ABI Research, and the gadget is already finding a home in the enterprise. And viable competition for the iPad in the enterprise has yet to emerge: RIM’s PlayBook has met with mixed reviews at best, and it is targeted at the ever-diminishing audience of BlackBerry users. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky recently predicted RIM would sell 500,000 PlayBooks by the end of May, a respectable figure, to be sure, but nothing to the one million iPad 2 tablets that sold during that gadget’s opening weekend.

Is another competitor ready to challenge Apple in this market? It’s unlikely:

• Google continues to make improvements to Android, and the release of Honeycomb was also a big step. But the wide variety of devices on the market make the OS more difficult to manage from an IT standpoint, the open platform has become a target for developers of malware and there’s always that problem of Android’s fragmentation. (You may not like Apple’s locked-down ecosystem, but your IT workers surely do.)
• Microsoft has a massive new distribution partner for Windows Phone in Nokia, but the company is targeting consumers — specifically mobile gamers — rather than its traditional business set. (I still believe that was a regrettable misstep.) Hewlett Packard may yet find an audience for webOS, but its share of the U.S. market has slipped below 3 percent.

I’m not suggesting that RIM is on the verge of disappearing from the landscape. Its prowess as an mobile enterprise messaging company is well documented, and the Ubitexx acquisition underscores the role it could play as a device-management company. But it is rapidly losing its standing as the preeminent provider of a mobile operating system, and only Apple appears ready to assume the throne.

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