What’s With iPhone For Enterprise?

There’s quite a few stories around quoting analysts as saying that AT&T Wireless’ plan to market the iPhone to enterprises is misguided, but I can’t find much about the plan. Most of the stories reference this IDG article which quotes “a source familiar with the company’s plans” as saying that the teclo “recently decided that the iPhone will appeal to business users and the operator is now working hard to ensure that its back-end enterprise billing and support systems will accommodate the device when it ships”. The rest of the article quotes analysts saying what a silly idea it is (enterprises probably won’t be able to extend their corporate applications onto the handset, it doesn’t have a removable battery and so on). An AT&T spokesman said he couldn’t comment on the iPhone beyond its launch date and price — which sounds like an Apple restriction.

I don’t think enterprise is a likely target for the iPhone because it is well and truly a consumer device. The only thing that may mitigate against this is Cisco’s efforts to make the handset compatible with its corporate phone systems, which I don’t think is going to offer any startling returns on investment.

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