According to Kantar World Panel, in March 2020, in the United States, more than half of the Operating System market share was owned by Android.
However, in the business environment, the outcome is different, most of the companies equipped their employees with Apple devices, but this current trend doesn’t seem to be the best strategic choice.
IMPORTANT PURCHASE COSTS
Buying an Apple mobile devices fleet can easily cost a lot, as iOS is usually more expensive than Android. Android mobile devices, even top-of-the-range ones, are usually cheaper: for the Samsung Galaxy S20, 800€ is the average price, for a Huaweï P40 Pro, it’s around 850€; as for the Iphone 11 Pro, the average price is above 1200€.
Regarding the Kantar statistics, more than 50% of US citizens own an Android device. According to this fact, there is a huge probability that within a company, all the employees will not be familiar with the iOS system and hence will need to be trained, which requires cost and time.
SINGLE MANUFACTURER ISSUE
When we talk about Android OS, many manufacturers come to our mind. Some are specialized in rugged devices (Zebra, Honeywell, Crosscall…) and some are general manufacturers (Samsung, Asus, Wiko, Huaweï…): it is easy to find a manufacturer that fits our company needs, regarding the price, quality, use or even the form. Add to this, data storage can be extensible (by buying a SD card); the OS system can be personalized regarding the manufacturer; devices price may change from a brand to another.
However, for iOS and its single manufacturer, buyers only have the choice between the different iPhones available on the market. Besides, it is not possible to add more storage on a device and Apple doesn’t offer rugged devices.
A company that needs to provide rugged devices for its employees to reach a high degree of performance when working, especially in harsh work environments (like warehouse, manufacturing, transport, hospital…) would prefer to use Android instead of iOS.
THE PLAY STORE IS UNSAFE
According to the Statista report, in the 2020 first quarter, the Playstore had 700,000 more applications than the App Store. However, Android has suffered from a lot of negative feedback related to its number of applications, as it has impacted the security of the devices. By making it easier to publish its application, the malware applications rate has increased. The iOS applications market, which is much more restrictive, proportionally have a lower number of malware applications. Indeed, publishing an app on the App Store required more time and investment than on the PlayStore: Android license is paid once and cost 25$ as the iOS one cost 99$ per year.
Good news for Android, according to the 2019 “Mobile App Threat Landscape” report from RiskIQ, the number of blacklisted applications available on the Playstore have fallen from 76.4% only for 2019. It is creating a significant improvement in policies for Google’s OS, and thus significantly reducing the gap with Apple’s applications market.
ANDROID ENTREPRISE RECOMMENDED
Google has a program called Android Entreprise Recommended which has expanded to the EMM (Enterprise Mobile Management) sector since the beginning of 2019. Inside this program, device manufacturers and solutions suppliers which fit perfectly Google specific requirements and corporate needs are registered.
About Apple now, it has listed all its partners on the same page and nothing is dedicated to the mobility management sector.
IOS AND ANDROID MDM DIFFERENCES
No matter the OS chosen for your mobile device fleet, you will need a device management solution to secure your professional data and to manage all your employees’ devices.
MDM solutions compatible with iOS, added to being hard to use, are quite expensive compared to Android dedicated solutions. If we take the example of SimpleMDM and Jamf (iOS dedicated solutions): for one device per year, prices go from 30$ to 36$ for SimpleMDM and from 24$ to 40$ for its competitor.
Regarding the Android MDM softwares, they usually offer an easier platform that doesn’t necessarily require employees training and that are adapted as well for small and medium businesses than for huge deployment mobile fleet.
TinyMDM is the best example because it is the first french software to become an official Android EMM partner. Its goal is to provide a simple, easy-to-use and inexpensive mobile device management for companies. TinyMDM provides three management modes, from BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to fully managed and kiosk lockdown, all approved by Google. Moreover, it partner with many manufacturers such as Zebra, Crosscall, Athesi, Wiko, Honeywell or Samsung Knox.