Why iPhone and not a Treo or BlackBerry?

Why go with the iPhone first and not a BlackBerry- or Palm Treo-based application?

"[The iPhone's] ease of use is essential," Mahdavi says. "During emergency management you're adrenaline is pumping, you're not thinking clearly and you probably won't be as effective" as in a normal situation. This is where the simple, intuitive iPhone IU proves to be particularly valuable, according to Mahdavi.

It's also worth noting that though MIR3's mobile phone-based notification management application is currently available only to iPhone users, the company is working on similar applications for BlackBerrys and Treos, which it expects to be available in 2008.

Roberta Witty, a research vice president in Gartner's security risk group, has been following MIR3 for a few years, and though she's as of yet unfamiliar with the company's iPhone-based notification application, she's not convinced enterprises are going to being placing orders for iPhones just so they can use them for IT alerts or emergency notification.

"To me whether it's an iPhone or any other cell phone, it's just another end point. It's just one more device," Witty says. "Are people going to run out to buy an iPhone for business continuity? After 9/11 lots of people went out and bought BlackBerrys or Treos, but the iPhone in particular, who knows?"

Witty’s skepticism follows along with the conventional wisdom that enterprise IT departments are hesitant to adopt Apple’s mobile phone because it represents a lot of systems administrative work; plus it’s security remains relatively untested for the corporate market.

A Consumer Device with Business Potential

Wireless expert Maribel Lopez, a vice president and principal analyst with research firm Forrester, says she sees the value in Apple’s mobile user interface for business applications.

Lopez thinks the iPhone's touch screen UI could be valuable to organizations looking to run business-specific applications on the device, assuming the structure of the applications is designed or redesigned to take advantage of the interface.

"Applications designed for use on a device like the iPhone will have more direct access to processes," Lopez says. In other words, such apps could be designed to have faster access to pertinent data or to complete a process more easily than devices with other user interfaces. "This means end users will be able to find, use and understand the features out of the box without extensive training,” Lopez says. “If you can get employees to use those applications without extensive training, it is a huge win for businesses."