Will The iPhone Ever Be Ready For The Enterprise?

My colleague Sean Ginevan over at Network Computing asks if the iPhone will ever be ready for the enterprise IT market. This is shaping up as the never-ending question of 2007.While bloggers and industry insiders (including yours truly) continue to debate the merits and risks of the iPhone in the enterprise, vendors like Avaya and Sybase iAnywhere are busy launching enterprise-grade products for the iPhone.

Sure, the iPhone may not yet be certified with the Wi-Fi Alliance, but with heavy hitters like Avaya and Sybase launching apps, the iPhone will be in the enterprise. In fact, I bet it's already in many large organizations and has been for months.

While Apple has hardly lifted a finger to support the iPhone in the enterprise market, end-users in the enterprise (also called consumers) have demanded business access to this device. This is the reason top vendors are doing their best to make the iPhone enterprise-ready.

It seems while analysts, bloggers, and journalists are busy debating this topic businesses are actually starting to deploy iPhones in their organizations. Sure managing the iPhone is currently a lot of work, but I suspect there will be even more products on the market soon enough that will ease the pain. The time to debate the merits of the iPhone as an enterprise device are quickly coming to an end. The better question now is how do businesses begin to make the iPhones already in their midst safe and productive computing devices for their employees.