The iPhone is drawing criticism from IT pros for its poor integration into corporate secure e-mail systems, and that may outweigh Apple’s short term gains yesterday with the ‘longer battery life’ announcement.

A Wall Street Journal article points to the lack of clients for Blackberry and other secure servers, and it notes Cupertino’s concept to reach into business markets are a leap into territory where Apple doesn’t have a lot of strength. The article lists corporate reluctant to allow iPhones onto their e-mail nets, because the only known method for e-mail from an iPhone uses IMAP, and the attendant security risks have a chilling effect on the cool new device.

Yes, it may be geekalicious and have AJAX support, but if it exposes company data to unauthorized eyes, how could it sell into the Fortune nnnn world, where Apple wants badly to reach?

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