* Mobile devices key for clients, wealth managers sayBy Ashley LauNEW YORK, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Wealth managers prefer using
Apple (AAPL.O) products for business rather than Research in
Motion’s (RIMM.O) BlackBerry devices, a survey by Aite Group
showed on Thursday.Of 402 financial advisers polled, 45 percent said they
would choose an Apple iPhone or iPad, while 14 percent would
pick a BlackBerry.The research firm, which focuses on financial services,
conducted the survey in March, well before the recent RIM
outage which left large pockets of BlackBerry users around the
world without access to email and other functions.”I’m not surprised that Apple had made inroads, but I am
surprised that the statistic was that weighted against the
BlackBerry,” said Phil Michaels, head of business development
at Aegis Capital Corp.Michaels said about 90 percent of the advisers at his
company use BlackBerry smartphones because of the ease of key
functions and integrated calendar availability.”I always thought BlackBerrys were still preferred on the
business side and Apple was more preferred on the individual
user side - the creative, non-business side,” he said.The study found that using mobile devices was increasingly
important to advisers, many of whom service clients with
hand-held devices who have access to online brokerage
services.Nearly half the advisers surveyed said having access to
business applications was an “important” or “very important”
part of their technology strategy for 2011.
