The iPhone Becomes Congress' Latest Must-Have

At any rate, usually BBs can be had by organizations at $99 or less, so if Congress can get iPhones at that price, well ... on the other hand, with BB you are using their server, so this would involve a major investment in time and effort for IT, as they would have to use Microsoft's ActiveSync. All at taxpayer expense, of course.

The Chief Administrative Office (CAO), which oversees the communications systems for the House, has begun testing a small number of iPhones. According to The Hill, Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the CAO, said:

"The reason we’re trying them out is because we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have them."

Of course, it's the same thing in corporations, which are doing similar testing to see if the iPhone is really "Enterprise-ready."

But while the House member (the Senate apparently isn't looking at this --- yet) would have to pay for the phone itself out of their Member's Representational Allowance, since, as I noted, the BB server doesn't support the iPhone, there would be some pricey changes involved.

Similar to corporate testing though, it's likely to be a long road at any rate. At RIM needn't worry much. The primary communication device would still be the Blackberry.