iPhone = The New Crackberry*?

Hi, Billy Merck here once again, hosting through the end of the week so that Lat can take another brief vacation. No intro post this time; check here or here if you don’t know who we are. But enough of that, let’s get right to it.
The Wall Street Journal has this article about the extremely high demand from employees for and the equally strong reticence on the part of businesses, including of course large law firms, to give access to corporate email services on the soon to be released Apple iPhone. From the article:

While millions of consumers are eagerly anticipating Apple Inc.’s launch of its iPhone next week, Bill Caraher is bracing for the worst.
Mr. Caraher, technology director of von Briesen & Roper, a Milwaukee law firm, says he is being besieged by inquiries from employees wondering whether the office’s email system can be used with the device.
His answer, at least initially, has been no. The main problem is that the iPhone can’t send and receive email through the company’s corporate BlackBerry email servers. He says he is unwilling to look into workarounds, because they might compromise the company’s security. “It’s another hole in the system people can exploit,” he says.

Despite concerns about opening up email systems, Apple is apparently pushing to grab some crackberry market share:

All this may change later this month when Apple plans to unveil the iPhone. According to a person close to Apple, the company is expected to fight for this market, currently dominated by players like BlackBerry’s RIM, Palm Inc. and, increasingly, Nokia Corp. and Motorola. If Apple comes up with an acceptable strategy for integrating with business software systems, many companies might change their tunes.

At least one law firm is open to the idea:

Other businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP of New York has been getting hit with a range of iPhone inquiries, according to spokeswoman Claudia Freeman. The law firm may try to support the device once it is launched, she says.

So we have three questions we’d like to throw out there to open up discussion:
1) Will law firms open up their email systems to the iPhone?
2) If they do, will the iPhone grab a substantial chunk of the crackberry market?
3) Will whether a firm integrates the iPhone into email services become a factor in the compensation wars?
* “Crackberry” is used in the context of this post to refer to any device similar in function to a Blackberry, and is not limited to the Blackberry.

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