Is iPhone Enterprise Ready?

"Is iPhone Enterprise Ready?" is a very straightforward question, with a difficult answer. I have been trying to read up on this ever since I saw an article which said that Blackberry & Windows Mobile will outrun iPhone in the future.

There are many websites/blogs out there which have different view points about this. Some say that iPhone is already 100% Enterprise Ready, some say that it will be Enterprise Ready sometime in 2009 and some say that it will never be. Apple baosts that iPhone is "The best phone for business, ever". So, really where is Apple with respect to Enterprise Readiness?

According to the analysis that I have done, below are the areas that Apple needs to improve before they can really call iPhone "Enterprise Ready"

• iPhone already has a good customer appeal. It is high time Apple shifted their focus to device security
• Allow background-enabled applications. iPhone allows this for native applications. How can enterprise IT teams run diagnostics and gather data if they are not able to run background apps?
• Make app development and distribution easier. In the current scenario, dependency on Apple is very high for developers to distribute their apps.
• Make device updates easier, so that organizations do not have to depend heavily on their IT teams to support large scale deployments
• Provide volume discounts, so that enterprises can get good rates when they purchase in bulk. Blackberry's Buy-one-get-one-free promotional campaign got them the huge upward trend in sales numbers for Q1 of 09 and earned them the Best selling consumer phone of 2009.
• Finally, PLEASE allow people to change/swap battery on their own. This is something which is super important for Enterprises who expect their employees to have 24 hour connectivity. People carry spare laptop batteries to have backup charge. How can Apple expect people to be always connected when the iPhone doesn't even retain charge for more than 24 hours?