Forrester Research says iPhone and iPad 'secure enough' for most businesses

All of this has very little to do with any security features or otherwise in iOS.

The reality is that when the iPhone was first launched, IT departments decided that as an Apple device it must be a toy akin to the iPod music player and therefore had no place in their purely Microsoft world. If people wanted a smartphone then they would just have to sign up for a corporate Blackberry, at least that required additional document servers in the server room to make the IT department feel important and in charge.

As a result, security analysts came out with all kinds of stories about why the iPhone was unsafe, even though large numbers of people from the same organizations walk around every day with unsecured and unencrypted laptops full of company information. Not to mention pockets, handbags and briefcases containing USB drives with everything on them from their kids' homework to commercial-in-confidence and even government secrets.

What has changed in the meanwhile is a lot of those guys in the IT department have done a Benedict Arnold and gone out and bought themselves cool iPhones, and there has been tremendous pressure from the rest of the staff to use their iPhones at work. And, of course, the first members of staff to go out and get iPhones were the executive.

I know of plenty of companies where the general manager has simply called up the IT department and basically told the tech. support guy to connect up his iPhone to corporate email or else.

The simple fact is that the iPhone has invaded the enterprise like a Tsunami, and there is simply no way to overcome it. So now the analysts (or should that be apologists) like Forrester are simply making their message retrospectively fit the facts.

Ah, yes, Apple has added exchange support and remote wipe so, unlike our earlier advice, now we think that iPhones can fit in the corporate world -- as if half our workforce weren't already using them anyway, no matter what we say!

Fail.
Only days after a link in any webpage or email can root your iPhone with a malicious executable, you shouldn't be extolling its secureness.