A lot of praise has been lavished on the various incarnations of the iPhone, and with good reason. It is a smart, powerful, versatile piece of kit. But one thing that it could never escape was the accusation that, for business, it just couldn’t live up to the more business targeted smart phones by the likes of Blackberry.

But time moves on, and Apple have been upgrading their phone (the latest version, the iPhone 3GS, has just been released). So the question becomes – is it now a tool that can compete with the higher end business phones?

The iPhone as a Business Tool

The answer has to be a resounding yes, for a number of reasons. Firstly the upgrades allow the processor to work at twice the speed of before, making complex software running far more viable -v vital for many business applications.

Also important is the freedom for developing 3rd party applications. Many companies want to have their employees to ave access to their own software, software targeted towards their own business and work. The Apple iPhone’s application platform manages this superbly.

There are also a lot of very powerful ‘off the shelf’ business applications available, including solutions from companies such as Oracle, which firmly put the iPhone in the driving seat.

Add in other features, integration with the Microsoft exchange server, the ability to act as an ebook reader (great for reading reports etc) and proper web browsing (for research on the go) and you have a phone that has become an almost prerequisite for those who are looking for a powerful business tool.