iPhone News Updated

Rogers IT head eyes iPhone switch

For a while now, the city of Rogers has been BlackBerry friendly. Currently, there are 45 Black-Berrys being used by various members of the city staff, including department heads and police officers. The other smart phone used widely by the city is the Motorola Moto Q, and there are only 15 of them.

But then came Rufus Ramey.

Ramey, the city’s information technology director, is an iPhone user.

When it comes to the iPhone, Ramey is much like the throngs who gathered at last week’s Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco: giddy over any news about the new operating system and eager for the update to be released.

His schoolboy-like attitude toward the iPhone notwithstanding, when Ramey talks about moving the city away from the Blackberry, he is all business.

To begin with, the Black-Berrys start at a higher price. Ramey said the city pays $250 for the smart phones, but the base iPhone model has cost $200 for the last year. Apple has since announced a $99 model of its iPhone, giving Ramey hopes for an even cheaper switch. Then there are the fees. “The average monthly cost for the Blackberry MDS plan and voice plan runs $83 per month versus an Apple iPhone equipped with an Exchange Push data plan and voice plan running at (about) $73 per month,” Ramey said. “In nine months, (the iPhone) pays for itself.”

The Moto Q costs roughly $80 per month, Ramey said.

That was the reasoning Ramey gave when he switched Mayor Steve Womack’s phone a few months back. At the time, Womack said it took a little while to get used to the iPhone, but he soon found it as easy to use as the Black-Berry. Fire Chief Tom Jenkins also has a city-issued iPhone.

The cost is the reasoning Ramey said he’d use when he proposes switching all of the city’s phones.

But more than cost, the city would also be a little more efficient, Ramey said.

It starts with the servers. Rogers uses two servers to manage BlackBerry’s Exchange data service, but Ramey

said the iPhone provides the same service with only one server. That would mean less energy needed to run the city’s servers and less time for maintenance for the four-man IT crew.

But the applications on the iPhone could make all city staff more efficient, Ramey said.

In the city’s police cars, fire trucks and ambulances, there are things that look like laptop computers. They’re really not. The Wyse Thin Clients are basically just screens and a modem. They connect wirelessly with the city’s Citrix server, and while it may look like the programs are running on the Wyse units, the screens are only showing what is happening in the server room at City Hall.

Ramey said the Citrix server would allow employees to access any program to which the city gives access.

And while the city has found the Wyse units a costeffective option, Apple’s App Store includes a free program, Citrix Receiver, that will let any iPhone do what the Wyse units do.

While the Citrix server has found obvious uses in the public-safety arena, Ramey said it could be applied in virtually every city department. Eventually, it could mean the city’s building inspectors could open and view submitted plans from an iPhone while they are at the construction site, along with a host of other examples.

These switches, however, would likely not happen overnight. Ramey said he would propose making the switch while replacing phones that are due for an upgrade anyway.

[Thanks: http://nwanews.com]

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