AT&T prepping to bring iPhone to corporate and business customers - Apple iPhone goes enterprise on Jan. 21
Posted by Will on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 6:15 pm under Cingular/AT&T, iPhone, Apple, Announcements
The enterprise market is a huge money-maker for carriers and manufacturers alike. Just take a look at the leading smartphone platform in the US. The RIM-made BlackBerry platform is the push-emailing, Outlook server compatible, enterprise-handset of choice among the corporate-set. Sure, the iPhone has already taken the second-highest market share in the smartphone segment, but cracking the mainstream corporate market would drive up market like mad.
There are already many businessmen and businesswomen (or is it businesspeople? Political correctness, bah) bugging their IT departments to support the iPhone, and there are even enterprise iPhone users that don't even care that their IT departments are lagging on iPhone support. Well, it seems that AT&T is getting set to officially give the iPhone some corporate-love.
One of BGR's tipsters have indicated that, come January 21, AT&T will be offering the iPhone to its corporate and business customers. All discounts associated with corporate and business accounts will still be valid - although there may be special iPhone data plans of $25 and higher that will be require mandatory subscription. Corporate and business customers looking to bring the iPhone into their enterprise environment will have to undergo a special pre-activation process before activating the iPhone through iTunes.
Now, it's unclear whether or not the iPhone's entry into the AT&T's official corporate stable marks Apple and AT&T's intent to bring Microsoft Outlook Exchange support to the iPhone. Contrary to what the image above (from BGR) might lead you to believe, there is no native support for MS Exchange on the iPhone. But, we sure hope the US iPhone duo is working to bring Outlook server integration to the iPhone - that would just make our year month week.
[Via: BGR]
If you found this story interesting, why not subscribe to our RSS feed to get your daily fix of mobile technology news?
January 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[…] IntoMobile - Mobile Phone News and Reviews wrote an interesting post today on AT&T prepping to bring iPhone to corporate and business customers - Apple iPhone goes enterprise on Jan. 21Here's a quick excerpt The enterprise market is a huge money-maker for carriers and manufacturers alike. Just take a look at the leading smartphone platform in the US. The RIM-made BlackBerry platform is the push-emailing, Outlook server compatible, enterprise-handset of choice among the corporate-set. Sure, the iPhone has already taken the second-highest market share in the smartphone segment, but cracking the mainstream corporate market would drive up market like mad. There are already many businessmen and busines […]
January 17th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I'm sure the business-folk would demand outlook integration. With this news, I'm sure the iPhone would crack the #1 spot for smartphone sales among businesspeople.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:13 am
iPhone is very popular nowadays as this new product that emerged in the world's market changed our vision as for mobile phones.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
[…] I am excited to hear rumours today that we might see a corporate iPhone from Monday. I'm still not sure what this really means, but watch this space. You can find out more here. […]
January 18th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Revolutionary!!! The first and only business phone without any business functions!!
January 18th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
[…] AT&T rumored to be bringing the iPhone to its corporate and business customers, we speculated that AT&T and Apple would roll-out some enterprise-class email support. Namely, […]
January 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
[…] AT&T rumored to be bringing the iPhone to its corporate and business customers, we speculated that AT&T and Apple would roll-out some enterprise-class email support. Namely, […]
January 19th, 2008 at 12:46 am
[…] willpark wrote an interesting post today on AT&T prepping to bring iPhone to corporate and business customers …Here's a quick excerptApple iPhone Confused - Wants To Be Enterprise Phone; Avaya gives iPhone some enterprise prowess - Avaya one-X Mobile coming to iPhone; Apple iPhone does Enterprise - will have standard OSX VPN-client and Quick Look for Word and Excel … […]
January 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
[…] corporate/business account discounts toward a shiny, new iPhone can finally breathe easy. As we previously reported, the rumors about AT&T's plan to bring the iPhone to corporate and business customers […]
January 24th, 2008 at 7:36 am
[…] AT&T prepping to bring iPhone to corporate and business customers - Apple iPhone goes enterp… […]