“We’re telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting (iPhone use in) the enterprise,” Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney says. “This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities and it’s important that it be recognized as such.”

The iPhone, scheduled to ship in the U.S. on June 29, appears to be a great consumer device but has no redeeming qualities from the perspective of a business user, Dulaney says. Besides lacking security features like a firewall, the product does not support Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes, so corporate users would have to forward e-mail to an Internet service provider, he says. Gartner’s research note warning against business usage of the iPhone will likely be issued Monday, according to Dulaney.

“You’ll have e-mail in a place that’s unsecured," he told Computerworld. "There are no firewalls on the device. There’s no ability to wipe (data from) the device if it’s lost."

Businesses have little, if any interest in the iPhone and Apple isn’t marketing it to the business sector anyway, says Randy Giusto, who leads IDC’s analysis of mobile devices, computing and computer markets.