The iPhone may have corporate applications, down the road

The first iteration of the iPhone is clearly a consumer device. And I'm well aware of the security and other issues that make it less-than-ideal for corporate use -- currently (see story). But already there are signs that it could have corporate applications down the road. As my colleague Julia King reports, Auto Warehousing Co. CIO Dale Franz was happily surprised to find that his company's Web-based VIPS application works on his iPhone. This is a heavy-duty application.

"I got live production data on my iPhone without having made any modifications to the application, all while I was sitting at home on my deck on the Fourth of July," he says, still pleasantly stunned by what he labels "a happy accident."

After his little backyard experiment, Frantz has another plan in the works: order iPhones for the 50 or so traveling managers and give them anywhere/anytime access to VIPS data...

Frantz said his developers are working on a few tweaks to make the application work even better under Apple's Safari browser.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that business software makers such as NetSuite Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. are marketing their applications to iPhone users and modifying software so it works more smoothly on Apple's device.

Brian Keare, COO at Circle of Friends LLC, said that he, too, was pleasantly surprised to find that he was able to log onto NetSuite and get access to all of his small company's sales and accounting records.

"It's proving to be useful enough we're really going to take advantage of it and use it as a business tool," said Mr. Keare...

By the way, both Franz and Keare said they couldn't get access to corporate applications using a Treo. Didn't work.

Users said the iPhone's Web browser, known as Safari, is one of the most usable on a mobile phone, with better compatibility with many Web sites. They said the large touch-sensing screen on the iPhone -- which lets users pan around a Web page and zoom in with various finger gestures -- also makes it more practical to use the Web.

Have you tried your company's Web-based applications on an iPhone? Would they work better with a few tweaks?

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Related: "Gartner urges IT to embrace consumer devices but resist iPhone"