With the announcement of a new SDK, third party developers are beginning to explore how to improve the iPhone's business capabilities.
 

This signals a complete change in Apple’s strategy. Where once the iPhone was postioned as a consumer multimedia device, it is now being promoted as an all-in device capable of becoming the mobile device of choice by corporate devices. The key to this is Apple’s departure from its earlier policy that locked out outside developers to one that embraces them.

This has, for example, encouraged major enterprise software developer Sybase to develop iAnywhere which is a suite of tools that will help the iPhone connect to enterprise software like Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange. Sybase says that they developed iAnywhere in response to strong demand from customers.

One challenge is security. Unlike the Blackberry that was developed from the beginning as a corporate device with industrial strength security features, the iPhone is lacking in areas like built-in encryption and password protection, areas that are expected to be addressed by Apple in upcoming software upgrades.