WSJ: iPhone a tough sell to IT departments

A piece in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal ("Companies Hang Up on Apple's iPhone" paid sub. req'd) points out one of iPhone's biggest (potential) deficiencies - its lack of compatibility with corporate email systems by RIM, Microsoft and Motorola.

While iPhones can be used for email, for now, many businesses don't plan to sync them with internal email systems that use technology from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and Good Technology, owned by Motorola Inc. That means many iPhone users won't be able to directly send and receive messages through their corporate email systems, although they may be able to forward their work emails through a third-party service like AOL or Yahoo Mail.

Although we've known about this since January it's really starting to hit home with potential customers who have mobile phones that are provided by their employers.

And if that wasn't enough to give Cupertino a wake-up call the WSJ also hammers the iPhone in a piece today about corporate security. Brian Gomes (in "Corporate Security's iPhone Challenge" paid sub. req'd) points out that iPhone is everything that's bad about corporate security: it's a camera, portable flash drive and mobile phone wrapped in one:

If you are a corporate IT guy, what should you say about iPhones in the workplace and connected to the corporate network?

You just say no. That's what a lot of corporate IT guys have said about iPods. Two years ago, it was a policy that was written down, but not enforced. Now, there is technology that prevents iPods from being connected to the enterprise network. Potentially, they could maliciously take information off the network in an unauthorized way. But the bigger risk really is their accidentally putting a virus onto the network.