Research Shows iPhone Penetration to Grow by 164 Percent

Is the iPhone going to rule enterprise mobility? Consider this: a recent  Goldman Sachs survey of its IT executives showed that 17 percent expect to support the iPhone 3G in the next year. That's a "very strong number especially at this early stage," says Goldman telecom analyst Jason Armstrong in a post by Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider.

Those numbers were before the most recent iPhone release, which includes Exchange compatibility. Armstrong  expects adoption rates to only increase when that software update launches on Friday.

Other companies may be more cautious than Goldman, but remain bullish nevertheless about the new phone. In a report on Unified Communications produced by Osterman Research and contributed to by Strategic Technology Analytics, we found that while just two percent use iPhones today as their mobile messaging platform, 5.3 percent of enterprises says they will do so by 2010. that's an increase of 164 percent. Similarly, while just 17 percent of users may rely on iPhones as their mobile server, 37.6 percent say they will do so by 2010.

The big question in all of this will be the impact on RIM. As a platform, our research found that RIM will continue to show healthy growth, over 30 percent, but as a phone we found that Blackberry devices will drop by seven percent.

I'm wondering how RIM will respond.  Here's an interesting move. The Intel-based iPhone killers are due out this summer. Do you think RIM convert one into its latest mobile darling?