iPhone gets down to business with IM, Office support

So, you bought an iPhone for business use, huh? Chances are, you quickly realized the end-all-be-all consumer handset lacks even some of the most basic business applications--making it a very expensive paperweight for the suit and tie crowd. Worry not, however, a number of third party developers are stepping into the void, to provide web-based solutions to the iPhone's shortcomings. First on the list is Microsoft Office support; while the iPhone can open and read Word and Excel docs, it can't edit them. Enter gOffice: a web-based alternative to Office that can create and save Word-compatible docs. While that could be a life-saver in a pinch, the iPhone's lack of copy and paste will probably prevent you from writing the great American novel using the virtual keypad.

Another common gripe from iPhone users is the lack of an iChat app, especially since instant messaging was originally rumored to be one of the phone's central features (some early rumors even had the device going by the name of "iChat Mobile"). Apple's oversight is another developer's gain though and a number of third party devs have iPhone-optimized IM clients on the way. Check out BeeJive's JiveTalk or sign up for the alpha test of Trillian Astra from Cerulean Studios for free access to AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, ICQ, and Jabber over WiFi/EDGE.

For more on the iPhone's business sense:
- see this MyiTablet article on gOffice
- check out BeeJive's website
- and this Gizmodo article on Trillian

Related article:
iPhone not for the enterprise, Gartner says. Report