Consumer smartphone that's winning businesses

In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Apple has a full page ad advertising its #1 ranking in US business user customer satisfaction as reported by JD Power and Associates. In a near tie for second were RIM (BlackBerry) and Samsung, with HTC, Motorola and Palm (Treo) posting below-average scores. Nokia apparently had too few US customers to be measured.

The BlackBerry was tops this year and its score was essentially unchanged. The iPhone passed it, setting a new standard for customer expectations of a smartphone. (This news came out in early November but I didn’t see it at the time).

It’s clear that did Apple did well because its competitors failed to deliver. 24% of users reported a software problem. Of those, 44% have to reboot their phone once a week, and 34%have an application error or free at least once a week.

Smartphones are small portable computers, with many capabilities and governed by software. It’s not surprising that the best results come from firms that understand software, manage the complexity and focus on delivering a quality user experience. Unfortunately for Apple, by showing the way to its competitors, it will help (some of) those competitors become more capable.C’est la vie (c'est la guerre).