Undoubtedly you've heard about the iPhone SDK. While Apple DDoS's their own developer site with thousands of people trying to download the SDK, enterprise security managers are bracing for round 2 of iPhone security vs the yearning corporate executive.

Putting myself in its proper place

Lets face it; the shiny objects at todays town hall meeting wasn't the Exchange integration or the remote wipe feature. It was all about applications and their sheen. Salesforce.com, Electronic Arts, Sega and AOL all orchestrated today's focus away from enterprise security and into Apple's foray of cool. Lets also face it; enterprise security is only fashionable for a very small target audience. I'm in the minority.

Obviously, though, the minority does have a voice with Apple. The engadget live blogging of today's events show Phil Schiller taking the stage at 10:04AM. By 10:19AM he was done demonstrating all the enterprise integration and security. The enterprise voice lasted 15 minutes; the SDK and iPhone apps from 3rd party developers went on until 11:03AM.

Does Apple really get it?

Does Apple really understand what it takes to sell something to an enterprise? An enterprise has tens of thousands of IPs, hundreds of network ingress and egress points, thousands of ways for intellectual and private property to be absconded. Let us not forget the deluge of regulations, oversight committees and conformance to hundreds of international governance restrictions. For most enterprises, they are not running in a resource positive mode with overflowing headcount sitting idle, eager to consume another mobile device. In order for the iPhone to make headway in the enterprise it will have to up heave an existing technology. The most likely candidate for the smartphone junk drawer will be Windows mobile device, not the blackberry.

The RIM is here to stay

Phil Schiller's slide showing the 'old' Exchange integration vs the new method clearly was meant to show ActiveSync's dominance over GoodLink and Blackberry. Both of those 'inferior' technologies require an intermediary server, whereas ActiveSync is a direct push technology. However, the Blackberry enterprise managers look at it quite differently. They see the Blackberry Enterprise Server not as a stumbling block, but as a full-fledged necessary component of the overall mobile device risk management solution.

Apple trusts Microsoft?

How many Mac vs PC advertisements have you seen? Isn't the PC bloated, a Petri dish of viruses and represents everything uncouth? But here is the catch, while we wallow in wait for Apple to release the nitty gritty of how the iPhone enterprise security controls function, Phil Schiller shows a slide that's right out of the Microsoft ActiveSync security deck. Could the iPhone's enterprise security offering be nothing more than adaptation of the Windows Mobile security options? If that is the case, Apple in some strange twist of events, will be relying on Microsoft for security conformance.

Whatever might happen, myself like hundreds of other security managers reached out to our user base today. We all sent the predictable email out to the entire company reminding them that despite today's town hall meeting, the iPhone still is not yet an approved device (not yet).