The sustained applause following its announcement Tuesday and the ubiquitous buzz thereafter gave immediate credibility to Apple's iPhone. "Apple is going to reinvent the phone," Apple chairman and CEO Steve Jobs said yesterday. But while the public oohs and aahs, hanging on Jobs' every word, corporate IT departments might not be so keen about supporting Apple's new creation, at least at first.

The iPhone's drawbacks might outnumber the draws for business IT. First and foremost, it's yet one more device and another platform -- the iPhone runs on a slimmer version of Mac OS X -- overstretched IT departments (or telecom departments, if they still exist) will have to support. Secondly, sure, it's cool, but it may not even be up to snuff with the smartphones on the market today.

One of the main corporate qualms with the iPhone will be its lack of software flexibility. Apple is locking down the device, meaning that only applications Apple approves can be installed. That means no enterprise apps for now, and Jobs didn't mention data encryption, remote wiping, or enterprise policy enforcement in his keynote.

Even if Apple opens up, some applications like Siebel don't even run on the Macintosh platform. "The iPhone's ability to penetrate the corporate world is going to be limited because IT is not going to be able to support it and the applications that they're going to need are not going to be available on it," says Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

The iPhone also isn't cheap. At $499 to $599, it costs considerably more than many Windows Mobile devices. It's yet to be seen how well or if the iPhone will even handle Microsoft Office attachments that businesses rely on so heavily. It's also not clear how well the phone's calendaring function will work with Exchange and Lotus Notes. And even though the iPhone will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, users don't appear to be able to wirelessly sync with their computers.

Another minus comes from Apple's exclusive deal with Cingular. Many companies simply don't use Cingular's network, instead opting for Verizon Wireless or SprintNextel as their mobile carriers, and vendor lock-in means companies won't have as much leverage on price. The iPhone won't even run on the most current wireless network, using Cingular's 100-Kbps EDGE network rather than the 3G network, which runs at speeds up to 10 times faster, that Cingular supports for a number of its smart phones, including the new Treo 750.

Despite the negatives, the cachet that could come with the iPhone and the device's already generous feature set and sleek form -- a touch screen with almost no buttons -- may bring executives into the fold, forcing IT departments to support the device, if only for those few top employees. " Just as the BlackBerry for a time was exclusive for executives, there are places where price is less of an issue and this product is very enticing for them," says Forrester's Golvin.

There are plenty of features available today that could make an enterprise user happy. Conference calls are as easy as a "merge calls" button when a third party calls in. Users can choose what voicemails they want to listen to after seeing who they came from. Text messages can be reviewed in threaded conversations instead of lists of messages sent and received. The modified Safari browser on the phone displays full Web pages instead of tiny, dumbed down versions. The e-mail works with any IMAP or POP3 e-mail service, both of which Microsoft Exchange supports. Phone numbers found in e-mails become click-to-call links.

Looking further into the future, the same adoption arc that came with the first smartphones may happen to the iPhone. Consumers will buy the product; Apple hopes to sell 10 million of the phones by the end of 2008. Just as with other mobile devices in the enterprise marketplace, the simple fact that users are demanding corporate capabilities may push IT departments to support it. The notion that Apple may plan feature adds and extend its set of "trusted" applications won't hurt matters.

Soon enough, though, businesses may have to bite. "What we're looking at is the rapid consumerization of the enterprise," says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. "IT needs to be a facilitator of that to allow devices like the iPhone into the workplace rather than being the barrier. What's needed is a network foundation that serves information up to these devices through standard interfaces."

There are few other technologies where employees have as much IT buying and support power as in mobile devices. What started as a means for executives to roam free with first-generation BlackBerrys has spread like wildfire, and now everyone from salesmen to aides on Capitol Hill type furiously away at all hours. Though there are some stumbling blocks to get over, in the end the iPhone could very well find itself among the pantheon of enterprise smartphones like the Treo and BlackBerry.