Why American Airlines Chose Samsung Over Apple When It Bought 17,000 Tablets | Hacker News Reader

Why American Airlines Chose Samsung Over Apple When It Bought 17,000 Tablets

businessinsider.com

15 pointsLightning10 comments

The article probably should have stated the obvious - it is cheaper! When it comes to buying a thin client for enterprise applications, there must be sufficient feature parity between an iPad and Galaxy Tab.

As the article mentions, they did this only for volume i.e. flight attendants and technicians. The pilots still get an iPad.

"We chose Samsung devices for select workgroups after months of testing different devices and gathering employee feedback."

The Galaxy Notes are more expensive than iPads...

Since the price was not mentioned, who knows what they paid for the tablets. I doubt that it was a usual retail price for 17000 tablets.

This reads as basic marketing fluff for Samsung. Why is the Note preferable to the Galaxy Tab, let alone the iPad? The article certainly doesn't give a reason.

I'm actually interested in knowing the advantages of the Note in that use case. To me the Tab 7.7 I gave a friend for Christmas seemed like the best possible form factor for a mid sized Android device. 'Phablets' strike me as a wacky compromise.

The Note fits in a pocket. For the Tab you have to have a special pocket or a purse to carry it everywhere. Phablets are a compromise, but after you use the Note for one day as a phone, you will say "Wow, what a small screen my old phone has! How did I manage to use it?!"

> The Note fits in a pocket

Maybe in a large man's jeans or trousers but not women's jeans. Even the iPhone 5 doesn't properly fit.

I feel Apple will largely win the mobile Enterprise market (now fairly open with exit of RIM) while Android will win over the Education market (newer growing market).

To oversimplify, IMO businesses are a little less cost sensitive than consumers and very concerned about security. I think Apple will push the security message against 'open source' to get their product across the line. Plus they do work a little more simply, so less training required.

Androids 'cheap' will let them win Education. The simple fact that if a school uses Apple products there will always be a few parents battering the principles door saying why do I have to buy this insert apple product when I can but an insert android product at 30% less.

And somewhere in there is Windows Mobile for enterprise if they get it right and a million other factors I don't know, don't exist yet or just make up the grey shades in my point I didn't bother to include...

Tl:dr Article is not worth reading but the tittle does initiate an interesting conversation as to what are the levers that drive businesses to choose their tech.

There is another reason why Android might win the education market: it is not as closed as the iOS universe. You can build your own OS (AOSP) and you can easily deploy custom applications on it. No need to get a certificate from Apple first.

The battle of which mobile device will over enterprise deployments is still on going. I think Android will win though Microsoft has a strong position. I don't see a winner yet because of one question:

Which vendor has the best support?

By support I mean someone to call when something breaks. Or when you need to code out custom widgets. Or when a device is buggy and needs to be replaced. Microsoft has been traditionally good in this area. Apple kind of sucks at it. Android is starting to build out an ecosystem but the customizability is all there.

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