iOS Rules The Corporate Mobile Market As Android And Windows Scrap For Second Place

According to a report by Intermedia, Apple continues to dominate the mobile device market among small and medium-sized businesses. During the first 10 months of 2013, Intermedia customers activated 190,000 Apple devices, 29,000 Samsung devices, and 13,800 Motorola devices.

All told, Apple controlled 76% of the market in the period. As Apple Insider points out, the above data is sourced from Intermedia’s hosted Exchange service which claims around 700,000 business users, meaning the relevant sample size large enough to make the data interesting.

Microsoft ended the period with vanishingly small market share, and a large percentage jump in its device volume: 93% in the first 10 months of the year. That’s somewhat good news for Microsoft, a company that is desperate to grow its share of the mobile device market.

It is not hard, however, to grow your unit volume percentage when you sold few devices in the preceding period.

Among small and medium-sized companies, aggregate Android market share can’t rival Apple’s popularity, totalling to under 25% of unit volume.

The computing market changes as companies scale, or course. Contrasting the above is survey data from Bernstein Research out earlier this week which Barron’s covered. That study found that

of CIOs issue/plan to issue Windows tablets, up dramatically from 56% six months ago, and nearly in line with iPads. Plans for Android tablet issuance lags meaningfully, and fell to 15% from 23% in our last survey.

Apple remains atop the mobile pile, Windows is doing better over time, and Android remains a viable rival to Cupertino’s hegemony, but not one that can yet challenge its unit volume.

Among smaller businesses, Android spanks Windows’s mobile device volume, but among enterprise-scale clients, Microsoft is collecting market momentum that could see it best Android. The dynamics of this are somewhat simple, I think: Larger companies more require new machines to slot into their existing IT infrastructure, something that Microsoft has stressed as a feature of Windows 8.1-based tablets.

However, the Intermedia data paints a somewhat dire picture for Microsoft among smaller firms, a corporate demographic that it cannot afford to ignore.

So the picture is somewhat plain: Apple’s iOS line of mobile devices is tectonically strong among small firms, and attractive even to large-scale companies. I’m sure your anecdotal experience confirms that. This leaves second place in the mobile device market up for Android and Windows to fight over.

Just another day in the platform wars.