This is something that could definitely provide a lot of funding in the development of the librem 5 software.
Enterprises do not care as much about the lack of apps. There are hundreds of use cases on factory floors/points of sale/etc, where a librem 5 would be an excellent proposition to a company.
It’s secure, free of bloatware (And especially free of social media apps), and it can certainly run the enterprise software apps like a charm.
Pricing wouldn’t be an issue to most enterprises as they’re likely paying similar amounts for the Samsungs and iPhones.
Another huge advantage for enterprises is the life long support. They could buy Librem 5’s now and be sure it would still be operational in 10 years.
Probably the only issue holding that back at the moment is the battery life. The Librem 5 would need to be able to last for at least a shift (8h) of mild usage.
The best part is that all this extra funding would help the development of software for the librem 5, making it more mature and stable, thus benefiting the comparatively few consumer customers.
Without suspend 8h is no problem. The question is “what’s mild usage”. On heavy usage 8h is impossible, on no usage (screen off, mobile on) we reach 14h if I remember correctly. With suspend 18,5h. So it really depend on what “mild” really means. Screen on all the time is already a heavy battery usage. But also think about an additional battery that can be changed on break.
It really depends on what’s needed. A good idea would be to ship test devices for free (Purism will get it back after a test period). So use cases can be tested before they invest real money in that product.
Funny thing about factory floor, a lot of “Enterprise” companies won’t let you have your cell phone on the factory floor unless you have their “App”.
An app which the company can brick your phone, at will, or inadvertently. Always on 'droid or Apple, there must be a service that sells them on this.
(Wonder why this “App” isn’t on linux phones? Hmmmm…)
Not in Germany. I was inside a lot of enterprises … even the big ones like Siemens or VW and even if using cameras are forbidden → nobody wants to know if I take my phone inside or not. Installing spyware etc is against law (including on phones owned by enterprises as long as privacy of employees is under attack).
So it’s may interesting to know about which country you’re speaking about.
In Germany this isn’t really the case. Such apps are only mandatory if employees want to use their mobile phones as part of BYOD (bring your own device) to be able to receive company e-mails and such. Usually they also get the ability to factory reset your phone in case it got stolen or missed. But that’s just normal with MDM (mobile device management) platforms.
There is no app for Linux because there is no enterprise-ready Linux mobile phone yet.
Reply to both:
FWIW, I’m in the U.S. I’ve seen it in two U.S. companies, a former co-worker (RIP) saw it in a third.