14 DAY TRIAL // AT&T is apparently planning to market the iPhone to business users as well as consumers. According to analysts, supplying workers with such phones isn't recommended.
An AT&T spokesman would not comment on the iPhone except for saying that it's expected to become available in June. The wireless carrier will be the exclusive provider of the iPhone at first, with other carriers to start selling it as well some time after.
According to InfoWorld, the idea of the iPhone being marketed as an enterprise product baffles some analysts. If AT&T announces that it will be marketing the phone to enterprise customers, "we'd be against it," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner, who said he hasn't heard of such a plan from the operator. "We'd immediately tell our customers that'd be a very serious mistake."
According to him, Apple's iPhone would have a number of shortcomings for business users, one of which would be the battery that can't be removed. Truth be told, the iPhone might be able to adapt to any type of user and it is an innovative and feature-packed product.
But it was mainly designed to be a multimedia phone, providing users with a friendlier and more appealing OS, music and video playback capabilities, a design that's more stylish than in the case of other phones, and so on. As a business phone, on the other hand, it would have to provide some essential features that business users need.
Those features include an actual QWERTY keyboard (when's the last time a business phone was released without one?), messaging integration, a removable battery as well as a longer battery life. In the end, using the iPhone at work might work out for some people, but most are probably going to avoid it and settle for other products like RIM Blackberry or Palm devices.
However, it is also possible that after it's launched, the iPhone will include applications that might be useful for business users including support for corporate email. Unless that happens, enterprises will probably choose different devices for their employees.