Engineers are from Microsoft; Designers are from Apple, or so the old chestnut goes. While corporate America and many law firms take comfort in their conservative approach to technology and Microsoft is a comfy cardigan, Apple often upsets the computing status quo but is forever resigned to suffer small market share. With the iPhone launch almost a year on, what impact has it had on the mobile and handheld computing market?

Again the answer is that Apple's impact far exceeds its market share. With Palm and Motorola on life support, and Microsoft wandering aimlessly on the sidelines, the future looks to be a Blackberry - iPhone battle. Blackberry has ruled the mobile e-mail arena for many years, but the iPhone will become a corporate contender come June. Here is why:

1. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Those roaming the halls of CTIA, the annual mobile phone industry confab, have been struck by all the iPhone knockoffs. Touch interfaces "are in" in a big way. Even the iPhone's look has been ported over to the next Blackberry model.

2. Apple has released an SDK (Software Development Kit), which will allow third party developers to create applications for the phone. Heavy hitter Salesforce.com has already announced iPhone applications.

3. From remote wipe to remote configuration, the iPhone's 2.0 version coming in June meets corporate IT manager's wish list through the bizarre twist of Apple licensing Microsoft's ActiveSync technology. Stranger yet, first impressions suggest that Apple will greatly improve on Microsoft's functional yet uninspiring product when it appears on the iPhone.

Whether the iPhone eventually becomes the blockbuster like the iPod is irrelevant, actually. If the iPhone holds small marketshare but influences mobile computing for the better, so be it. It appears clear, however, that your next phone will come with some sort of touch screen.