IDC: Android and iOS to surpass BlackBerry in enterprise this year

According to a new study by market research firm IDC, the iPhone will combine with Android handsets to overtake BlackBerry’s enterprise marketshare for the first time ever this year. This is a major threat to RIM’s struggling mobile platform, which has been using its popularity in the enterprise market to stay afloat as its consumer sales have plummeted…

Computerworld (via AppleInsider) reports:

“IDC projects that for all of this year, consumer shipments of Android smartphones will reach 351.9 million, “employee liable” shipments will be 87.7 million and “corporate liable” shipments will total 15.1 million.

By contrast, Apple will ship 78.6 million iOS-based iPhones to consumers, 37.1 million to workers and 31.1 million to companies.

Combined, the “corporate liable” shipments of iPhones and Android-based smartphones will outdistance similar BlackBerry sales for the first time. Employee liable shipments of the Research in Motion BlackBerry in 2012 will reach 5.2 million, while consumer BlackBerry shipments will total 14.8 million, projects IDC.”

You can’t say you didn’t see this coming; the writing has been on the wall for months now. It seems like every few weeks a new government agency, or Fortune 500 company, announces that it is dropping its BlackBerry handsets. Most recently, the US National Transportation Board divulged that it was ditching its RIM-flavored devices in favor of iPhones.

For what it’s worth, RIM has promised to release two new smartphones running its BlackBerry 10 software by the end of January. So while it’s down — way down — right now, it may not be out. The Waterloo company debuted the refreshed OS in May of this year at its BlackBerry World conference, and the feedback on it has been fairly positive thus far.

But having a good proof of concept and actually shipping products are very different things. And so only time will tell if RIM can get businesses, consumers — and more importantly developers — on board with its new mobile OS. And Apple and Google aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

It’ll be interesting to see if RIM can pull itself out of this nosedive. But losing its long-running foothold in the enterprise market isn’t a good start.