Summary
Apple iPhone which shook the cellular world standards of the consumers will do it in business as well. Apple unique way to do the same but differently and achieve more public relations than all its rivals together will show its benefits in the business arena as well. Many employees will push their IT managers or office infrastructure managers to go for the iPOD rather than regular cellphone or even Blackberry which is pure technical appliance without the soul each Apple's device has.
Analysis
The continuous line of successes "made by Apple" paves its way to the challenging business world. As past shows, whenever Apple enters a new market segment, it changes it completely and forces its competitors to think its way, and to rewrite the known standards.
Definitely, it will do it in the conservative market of business cellular communication.
Blackberry is not the best solution since you must carry a "regular" cellphone. iPhone combines both giving you the most important thing- belonging to a community. Look how many attach the Apple logo to their Windows based notebooks hoping their IT managers would recommend the Mac as the mobile computing platform. Look how many high level managers refuse to accept Blackberry ( mainly in Europe). Those will hardly say "no" when they will be offered to have a business iPhone. iPhone puts you in a league that considered to be innovative and limit breaker.
Time to market (6 months) is not an issue since anyhow cellphone life cycle is 14-18 months, and I'm sure that if an employee is told to wait several months to get an iPhone and not Nokia or Sony Ericsson- he will wait. The current penetration of the iPhone ( reaching fast the 10Mu) and the open application possibility give this phone a tremendous flexibility. Of course, some modifications are required in order to have seamless synchronization with the current office platforms led by Microsoft, but it does not seem to be a "big deal".
My view is that as Apple did it in the consumer, it will repeat its success in the business environment since the road was already paved by the iPODs. Apple is no stranger for the business community who use the iPOD for e-books and video podcasts.
CY 2009 should be the opening year for massive adoption of the iPhone platform by the business community.
