Edible Apple

While many people may think of the iPhone as a cool little gadget good for playing games and browsing the web, Apple’s smartphoen is quietly making serious inroads into corporate America and threatening RIM’s longtime stranglehold in the business market.

According to recent data compiled by ComScore, the iPhone now accounts for 22.7% of business smartphones while RIM devices still command an impressive 51.2% of all business smartphones. Note, though, that the data only takes into account users who have their monthly smartphone bills either fully or partially reimbursed by their company. The data thus excludes users who routinely use their smartphone for business purposes but aren’t compensated accordingly. That notwithstanding, the iPhone’s nearly 23% share is quite impressive considering how dominant RIM has been in the business world over the past decade.

These numbers may not be a perfect measure of the enterprise market, but they should provide a reasonable quantitative representation of subscriber market share in that segment,” ComScore senior analyst Andrew Lipsman explained.

Just a few weeks ago we reported that Citigroup and Bank of America, both long-time RIM devotees, were allowing employees to use Apple’s iPhone to access company wide email as part of a pilot program. And not surprisingly, Apple’s iPad is also getting in on the action with JP Morgan Chase planning to give all of its investment bankers iPads for use in the field as part of their own pilot program.

via LA Times