Leader: iPhone for the enterprise

The long-awaited, much discussed iPhone has finally launched to the cooing of Mac fans and, perhaps, the gritted teeth of smart phone makers.

When Apple head honcho and polo neck addict Steve Jobs unveiled the touchscreen device, several of the major manufacturers including Palm and RIM experienced a drop in their share price - a drop that a rash of analysts put down to the new entrant to the market.

Should the enterprise players be worried? Could the iPhone start threatening the market share of the Treo and the BlackBerry?

It's not the perfect business gadget. There's no 3G in the iPhone, which will doubtless prove an annoyance to those who need to download attachments or handle significant amounts of email in a business day.

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And, if Apple's history of kit-making is anything to go by, the phones are likely to be reassuringly expensive. The US pricing, for example, is $499 or $599, depending on the memory of the model, and the phone must be taken with a two-year contract. If Apple uses similar price tags in the UK, the enterprise market is unlikely to be won over on cost.

The massive memory - 8GB for the top-end device - may also split enterprise buyers. It provides great storage capacity for carrying those inexorable PowerPoints from meeting to meeting but it may not be allowed by the IT department as it equally provides a conduit for bringing assorted nasties into the office or taking vital information out clandestinely.

Where the iPhone stands to win out is in usability. Apple's software has traditionally been lauded for its ease-of-use and intuitive nature - not a trait that is traditionally associated with enterprise smart phones.

The iPhone also has a Qwerty keyboard - now indispensable for dedicated CrackBerry users. The touchscreen keyboard may be an indicator of Apple's enterprise ambitions but is more likely to be a sop to operators keen to get consumers onto the mobile email bandwagon.

While Jobs' claim that the phone is "literally five years ahead" of the competition may be stretching it, there's no denying the iPhone does have some nifty tricks up its sleeve. One is the visual voicemail idea - where users can skip to vital messages through the UI without having to listen to all the others first. The phone also senses whether it's being held in a landscape or portrait way and adjusts the screen accordingly. It even shuts off the touchscreen element when it senses itself being brought up to someone's ear.

But for all its clever tricks, the iPhone shouldn't worry the business smart phone makers unduly. What average CIO is likely to pay to equip his workers with a flashy 8GB MP3 player they don't need? Or, for that matter, what company is going to switch to Apple kit when their buying history stretches back to Prehistory with Microsoft, smart phones included?

That's not to say the iPhone shouldn't trouble the smart phone makers at all. If the iPhone proves a hit then the smart phone makers will need to start upping their game swiftly and developing their own new tricks and improving usability.

Roll on the applications war.