Rumors have been flying around for the past week with regards to a huge move over at HSBC. The global bank was supposedly toying with the idea of ditching its BlackBerrys and deploying roughly 200,000 shiny new iPhone 3Gs to employees around the world. Version 2.x of the iPhone software has some great new features aimed at enterprise users so why not, right? We’re afraid not, El Senior Jobso. As it turns out, this rumor is just that – a rumor. HSBC has made an official public statement and clarified that it is most certainly not considering the switch. The buzz all started last week when HSBC Australia and New Zealand CIO Brenton Hush was quoted by ZDNET Australia as saying HSBC was considering the switch. According to a UK spokesperson for HSBC, no dice:
I don’t know if he was miss quoted or if it was made up, but I can put the rumours to bed now and state there is no truth in it at all. It’s simply not going to happen.
Apparently HSBC likes physical buttons and BlackBerry Messenger a bit too much to spend an enormous amount of cash on iPhone 3Gs. Had the rumors been true, this would have been Apple’s largest corporate iPhone score by leaps and bounds.
[Thanks, shlammed]