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Comment by kotaKat

8 hours ago

"Employees who have an iPhone from Radboud University can continue to use it as long as the device is still functioning. However, returned iPhones will no longer be reissued."

I wonder what the take rate will be from people rejecting the Fairphone and requesting their own SIM instead. The inner IT purchasing cynic in me says this is just a simple way to cull out your purchasing costs by only issuing one quasi-unpopular* device.

* I used to issue out phones at a large hospital and we allowed device choice. We saw ~90% iPhones, 10% Android in our fleet.

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kotaKat

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Quothling  5 hours ago

If Holland is anything like Denmark the cost of employee phones can be budgeted as an operational cost, which means it's basically free. I doubt that is their reasoning. It's far more likely this is a part of the massive anti-US tech dependency wave which is rolling over Europe. Digital sovereignty is a hot topic these days.

As far as what people want... it depends... A lot of people have two phones anyway, since they don't want to pay the additional taxation for using a company phone privately. Also because it's easier to turn it off when you're not working. In education I would imagine a lot of teachers/professors would prefer to not give their private numbers to students.

eloisant  8 hours ago

Probably not many, the iPhone only has a 35% market share in the Netherlands.

The Fairphone 6 is a pretty good phone.

  • joe_mamba  8 hours ago

    That sounds unreal to me. Typically rich countries, like the nordics, are majority iPhone. But then again, Dutch people are know across Europe to be cheapskates so maybe that explains it ;)

    • uyzstvqs  4 hours ago

      Android is generally more popular in Europe.

      The reason is how messaging works. In the US (and Canada?), SMS was affordable since before smartphones, and people kept using SMS once smartphones became common. Apple automatically integrated iMessage into that. Americans are used to texting using the default messaging app, and using an iPhone to text another iPhone provided a better experience than plain old SMS/MMS.

      In Europe, SMS was extremely expensive in the late 2000s/early 2010s, so people never really used it, and instead started using cross-platform internet messengers. MSN, Skype, then WhatsApp. Android was/is seen as the same or better quality for a lower price, so why buy an iPhone?