The VAR Guy

Hosted Microsoft Exchange provider Intermedia has updated its study of SMB ActiveSync device activations for the first time since May 2011, and it looks like Apple continues to rule the enterprise mobility space. In fact, Apple iPad activations grew 102 percent in less than three months, and it is now the second-most activated device behind the iPhone.

Here’s the breakdown, as per Intermedia’s press release:

• 57 percent on iPhone
• 21 percent on iPad
• 9 percent on various Motorola devices
• 8 percent on various HTC devices
• LG, Nokia, Palm and Samsung devices make up less than 4 percent combined

In other words, Google Android devices from Motorola, HTC, Samsung and LG combined don’t even match the Apple iPad in the SMB space. To Intermedia, it makes no difference — the messaging provider likes to hype its services as platform-agnostic. And Intermedia made a special note that these statistics only apply to devices utilizing ActiveSync devices, whereas BlackBerry phones use BlackBerry Enterprise Server for message syncing.

Apple’s massive reality-distorting field effects are surely at least partly to blame. While Intermedia doesn’t specify what it qualifies as an “SMB,” my best guess is that many — if not most — users are bringing in their own ActiveSync devices for activation rather than getting them direct from the company. Which means they’re part of the huddled masses in line at the Apple Store.

That said, it’s still a massive turnaround for a device that the naysayers initially wrote off as a toy and then claimed whose sales would never equate to an enterprise presence.

Read More About This Topic

• Microsoft Attacks Lotus Notes Ahead of Lotusphere 2011 … Again
• VoIP: Intermedia Launches Hosted PBX
• Has Steve Ballmer Fixed Microsoft?
• Microsoft’s Partner Strategy: Jon Roskill On the Record
• Is Google Planning to Sell Motorola’s Set-Top Box Division?