With iPhone 3G, Apple, AT&T get serious about the enterprise

found in the BlackBerry enterprise deployments.

And enterprise sites seem well aware of this. In the past 12 months, RIM sold 14 million BlackBerry smartphones, doubling the total amount it had previously sold. Since last June, Apple has sold somewhat more than 1 million iPhones. Even more striking, one recent study of 2,049 IT respondents found that when asked about their buying plans for Q3 2008, 82% said they planned to buy BlackBerry smartphones, a rise of 5% since February. About 13% said they planned to buy iPhones, ahead of Palm, chosen by 8%.

Microsoft has been steadily upgrading its centralized support for enterprise mobility clients, especially with the release of Windows Mobile 6.1. A key part of the new OS is added code that links the device with the just-released Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008

The iPhone's 2.4GHz 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity, based on Marvell's highly integrated 88W8686 chip, is apparently unchanged. The chip supports 802.11a on the less-crowded 5GHz band, but Apple still is not enabling that.

One prospect would be for Apple to eventually move to Marvell's companion 8688 chip, which integrates Bluetooth, according to Gregory Quirk, formerly a technical marketing manager with SemiconductorInsights, where he worked on a technical "tear-down" of the original iPhone. Integrating Bluetooth could lower costs a bit more but also expand iPhone's Bluetooth connectivity capabilities.

The iPhone 3G now incorporates built-in support for GPS, supplementing its original Wi-Fi location service based on software from SkyHook Wireless. The new iPhone is unique in combining both, enabling applications to use either as needed.

Apple is touting the "hundreds of third-party applications" for iPhone that will be available on the company's App Store. But how many of these are relevant to mobile enterprise users remains to be seen, or whether the App Store, the sole venue for iPhone applications to be offered and sold, will be an incentive for enterprise-focused developers.