"We are going to make some history together today". Said Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple in a casual and slightly mischievous tone in the press confress of Macworld on Jan 9, 2007. iPhone, a product that has been talked about for a long time in the industry, was making its debut at that moment.

 

Online surfing, sending and receiving email, playing games, chatting, listening to music, watching videos....this medium-sized iPhone could almost do everything that was previously done by PC. In the subsequent more than one year, it had rapidly attracted consumers all over the world and become their favorite. According to Apple, so far iPhone has taken up 28% market share of the American intelligent mobile phone, and the percentage is still going upward.

 

However, the employees' fancy for iPhone becomes a major concern for the information technology department in some large companies. The design concept of iPhone focuses on the user experience. Compared with those business models developed for office purpose such as BlackBerry of Research In Motion Ltd., the security and confidential function of iPhone become a biggest concern. The IT department in some companies clearly forbid all employees to use iPhone for business purpose, and Dow Jones Company that our newspaper belongs to is just one of them.

 

Information technology personnel use their iPhone to send or receive emails, manage user profiles and access intranet of the company. The beautiful and large TFT screen, as well as the friendly webpage brower of iPhone even strengthen their admiration. However, incidents of loss or theft of mobile phone happen from time to time. The protection password of iPhone is very unreliable, and users can't destroy the confidential information in the mobile phone through distance control.

 

In early Mar this year, iPhone initiated its challenge to BlackBerry. Apple announced to adopt crucial measures to make up for the weakness of iPhone in the business applications, including addition of safety mode in the pre-installed softward and support to mobile information deletion via distance control. Meanwhile, Apple iPhone's exclusive operator, AT&T Inc. changed previous payment terms which only accepted personal payment, and agreed to pay employees' mobile phone charge by corporate accounts. Regarding this change, the analyst of market research company Forrester Research said that, "the measure of Apple well solved the worries of IT department." The analyst of another market research institution Gartner Inc. said that, "these changes will make iPhone more applicable for business purpose."