Even today, Ferra says Fidelity’s Web-based Fidelity Anywhere mobile tools allow customers to receive market data, including real-time stock quotes or alerts, access their 401(k) accounts, make trades or check portfolio balances, among other things, on their mobile devices. "And people want to do more," Ferra says.

5. Perfect Timing: Wireless Multimedia Is Warming Up
According to a recent In-Stat report ("Will Stingy U.S. Multimedia Phone Users Turn Japanese?"), there has been a sizeable increase in the number of multimedia phones purchased in the United States that can play MP3 tracks and video files (from 15 percent in 2005 to 36 percent in 2007). Mobile device manufacturers have been keeping the marketplace stocked with devices that can straddle both the consumer and corporate lines—BlackBerry’s Curve, Motorola’s Q, Palm’s Treo 750 and Samsung’s BlackJack.

CIOs and their mobilized workers have started incorporating (or making plans to incorporate) text and instant messaging applications as well as location-based services—for example, GPS-enabled devices that give directions—into their fleets of mobile devices. In addition, In-Stat data ("Wireless Business Use: The Overlooked Profit Machine") shows a less-wired and more-wireless business world in the near future: U.S. corporations' spending on wireless voice and mobile data services will exceed business spending on all wire line voice and data services by the year 2010.

Taken together, all of that data shows that there could be a warm and welcoming home for the iPhone in the enterprise.