There's no longer any question whether the iPhone--and its creator Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)--are edging their way into the enterprise. According to an AT&T executive, 40 percent of the wildly popular smartphones sold so far this year were bought by business users. Questions do remain, however, about which devices the iPhone is replacing and why.

The CEO of AT&T's Business Solutions division, Ron Spears, said last week at a financial  conference that enterprises are now viewing the iPhone like a computer, suggesting that it may be cutting into laptop sales. "It happens to have a voice application on it. But what's important is what you can do with it, and the way you can mobilize workforces, and specific parts of your workforce, not the entire workforce," he said at the Barclays Capital Communications, Media and Technology conference. (A webcast of Spears' presentation is available for viewing.)  

Spears made the point that some road warriors may need only a couple of applications, and in that case it may not make sense to invest in laptops for them. There's some logic to that, certainly as companies continue to try to stretch the IT dollar further. At the same time, he suggested that businesses are beginning to feel as confident in the security of the iPhone as they are in the Blackberry. "[B]y the time the 3G came out in '08, they had solved about 80 percent of the security issues," he said.

Is it mostly spin, or is the iPhone really ready for enterprise prime time? Let me know what you think. - Caron