Apple's enterprise iPhone overture

In just a few short hours, Apple will reveal both its iPhone SDK and some sort of enterprise-related iPhone announcement. It being Apple, nobody outside of the company knows exactly what will be revealed at today's tomorrow's event, though, as always, there are a few ideas floating around. While the actual form that the SDK will take remains a mystery, it's not hard to imagine that iTunes will become the distribution mechanism for iPhone apps and that Apple will retain some sort of control over what ends up on the device. Regardless, open platforms are good for IT departments (as I've said before) and the iPhone SDK will be no exception. The ability to write custom apps for the device will only make it that much more viable in the enterprise.

Speaking of the enterprise, Apple's forthcoming announcement in that space provides us with far more fertile ground for speculation. If you asked business users what features were most likely to make them consider an iPhone, you would inevitably hear two things: support for Microsoft Exchange Server and/or Lotus Notes. While the former seems highly unlikely (given that Microsoft directly competes with Apple in the mobile OS space), the latter is basically a given at this point.

But I'll be surprised if Apple leaves it at that. While the iPhone is unquestionably a consumer-oriented device, there's no denying that it has some serious enterprise potential. And if the company hopes to sell 10 million iPhones this year, as it has stated, it can't ignore business users forever. While whatever Apple announces today tomorrow won't be enough to immediately unseat enterprise titans like the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, if the company continues to add enterprise features to the iPhone, it could slowly start winning over business users and IT departments, one by one. What would make you consider iPhone deployment in your organization? Management tools? Better security? Improved support for productivity applications? Let us know in the comments. -Mehan