How the iPhone Is Suiting Up for Work

To appeal to corporate clients, Apple is giving its handset a raft of features such as the ability to support Microsoft Outlook

by Arik Hesseldahl

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Even as the Apple iPhone has drawn praise for its design and music- and video-playing capabilities, the handset has also borne criticism for what it lacks.

Sure, the iPhone looks good and lets users elegantly go from listening to songs to making calls to watching video and surfing the Web. But from the time it was introduced more than a year ago, detractors immediately wondered: What's the iPhone's appeal for business users?

Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs paid heed, and on Mar. 6 the company announced a raft of new features aimed at addressing the needs of would-be corporate clients. At last, the iPhone will support Microsoft's (MSFT) Exchange, the key corporate system that delivers mail, calendar, and contact data to PCs running Exchange as well as Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerrys, Palm (PALM) Treos, and Windows Mobile handhelds.

Pushing for Push E-mail

To do that, Apple has licensed ActiveSync Direct Push, a Microsoft technology for synchronizing e-mail, contacts, and calendars between the Exchange server and a wireless device, Apple Vice-President Phil Schiller told reporters at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The company also unveiled details of its plans to entice outside software developers to create their own business tools, or applications, for the iPhone.

A wide range of potential corporate customers requested support for Exchange and its "push" e-mail capabilities that redirect messages to a person's wireless device, Schiller said. "There are a lot of things enterprise customers have told us that have held us back from being huge in the enterprise," Schiller said. "What do they want? Push e-mail [is a] huge request. They want great calendar integration. They want it pushed to them wherever they are."

Satisfying those users could give Apple a much-needed new source of revenue as growth in iPod sales slows and consumer spending tapers off. The company could use the iPhone to court corporate users hankering for a more fashionable alternative to existing-e-mail-compatible devices such as the BlackBerry and the Treo.