Although analysts might not agree on the market share that iPhone will command after its debut, they do agree that the buzz surrounding the product fuels consumer demand, and that these devices will eventually appear in the corporate environment. Business needs to be prepared when this happens, and now is the time - before iPhones start to appear at your business.
It is important that companies have stated policies for the use of new technologies at their business. Policies around remote access, client data, and data security should be clear and precise,and include any regulatory or legal requirements to which the company may be held. These policies should be communicated to staff regularly, and reviewed with new vendors who may come into contact with your information. If you don't have existing corporate policies around new technology, it's crucial that you define them before allowing new technologies in your network environment. Failure to do so may have serious consequence at your company.
With the iPhone in particular, it's important to know a bit about the product before staff members start using it as a business tool. Firstly, understand that the iPhone is designed for consumers, not business-people. The design does not focus on productivity or security, and as a result, will have an effect on the security of the information that's on it. There is no remote-wipe feature in the event of it being stolen, and it can't be centrally de-activated or administered from your business location. Using the iPhone for corporate email communications can possibly impact the legal and regulatory guidelines for your company.
As the iPhone is not geared for productivity, its email functionality isn't designed with a corporate email infrastructure in mind. At the current time, it doesn't sync with Exchange, and there's no enterprise email connectivity beyond POP3 and IMAP. The iPhone can view Word, Excel, and PDF docs, but cannot edit them.
Although it has the ability to sync contact and calendar data from Outlook, it must be physically connected to your computer in order to do so - there isn't a contact or calendar data 'push' from Exchange or Outlook, as with the RIM Blackberry devices. Both Outlook Web Access and SharePoint can be used from the iPhone's web interface. However, the extent of the functionality is currently unknown...
from: Look4iPhone.com
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