There's a reason the BlackBerry is the corporate standard smartphone and why no other device comes close. And it's not the keyboard (though that helps). It's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), the tool that lets IT manage BlackBerry users' access and security settings to the standards that most regulated companies and government agencies must meet. But as employees continue to put pressure on IT to support the iPhone and other devices, such as the new breed of Android devices, lots of companies are coming out of the woodwork offering mobile management products.

Should you bite?

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I'm not so sure. These tools do one or more of the following things, and most companies don't need the whole ball of wax: security/access management, inventory management, support management, and expense management.

Secure mobile access
Before you invest in any tools, you should know that very few smartphones support enterprise-class security. The BlackBerrys do when used with BES. Windows Mobile 6.x and Palm OS devices do when used with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. And ... well, that's mostly it. The iPhone 3G S supports a subset of ActiveSync Exchange policies. The WebOS-based Palm Pre and Symbian-based Nokia 9x devices are said to support a few such policies, though neither company has been able to tell me which ones. Google's Android OS does not support these policies.

So, your core management problem -- ensuring secure, authorized access -- is pretty much taken care of for you if you use BES or Exchange. Except that the iPhone doesn't have the auditing and remote provisioning features that regulated organizations require, not even if you use the free iPhone Configuration utility from Apple.