AT&T (NYSE: T) said it will start selling iPads directly to business customers Oct. 28. The carrier said in an announcement that it will offer "attractive post-paid mobile broadband price plans" for the device. The new offer coincides with a major effort on the part of AT&T's competitors to take a greater share of the enterprise mobility pie via tablet computers. Over the next few months, several tablets are expected to go on sale, including BlackBerry PlayBook from RIM (NASDAQ: RIMM), the Galaxy Tab from Samsung and an Android tablet.

As AT&T was announcing its iPad news, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) had another iPad development to champion: The device will be on sale at both AT&T and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) stores beginning Oct. 28. In Verizon's case, the iPad will operate with the carrier's MiFi hotspot modem, rather than on its 3G network.

For some pundits, this means that it's only a matter of time before Verizon starts carrying the iPhone as well.

"[I]t looks as if Apple and Verizon are kicking off the beginning of what could be a nice little partnership here," writes MG Siegler at TechCrunch. "This sort of thrown-together component is step one. You could easily see the CDMA iPhone 4 in January being step [two]. Then step three might be a CDMA+GSM iPad (and/or iPhone) sometime later in 2011 that works on both Verizon and AT&T..."

For more:
- see AT&T's announcement
- see Apple's announcement
- see MG Siegler's post at TechCrunch

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