Sybase's Mr iPhone... Mr iThain ;-) has been in Sydney this week & I have been keeping an eye on the Australian devices and checking out the Sydney Apple store. This has been totally accidental, as the main deal this week was to Evangelise about Enterprise Mobility in general and epecially where Sybase fits in the big picture, at Wireless World 2009.

As a by-product I have been able to check out the cool Sydney Apple Store, which I was told by one Apple Employee, is the second biggest in the world behind London's Regent Street, which as far as I know also holds the record as the busiest store in the world also. The store is spread over three floors, the ground being Macbooks etc, the second being iPods, but mainly iPhones and the third being the Genius bar & One-on-One area. Of course Mr iPhone was mainly checkin' out the middle floor.... Ok more than a few times!

Each time the line for iPhones just kept steady at about 3-4 folks... all the time. Seems the Aussie's love of iPhone is strong and that can also been seen on the streets, where it far out numbers other devices IMHO.

One interesting fact is that, due to Australia's Competition Laws, the Aussie's can buy unlocked iPhones in Australia, at a premium, though cheaper with a Carrier Plan... and the lucky folks have about 4 available

• Optus
• Telstra
• Virgin Mobile
  
• Vodafone
  

Before you say that these iPhone Users will mostly be consumers, I'd like to point out that there are a lot of business folks! They will eventually be, either allowed to bring their device into their companies, or convince their companies to invest in iPhone as a differentiator/innovator for mobile applications and giving the mobile information worker the competitive edge.

Before that happens such companies should be looking to Secure and Manage their iPhones and Mobile devices with central policies & look at Enterprise e-mail, tasks, calendar and contacts to be encrypted.

For this check out Sybase Afaria & Mobile Office