Oracle and Salesforce.com Get Early Jump on iPhone Apps

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone app parade got an early jump on the 3G version of the popular device Thursday, but business and productivity apps seem to be lagging in the back of the line.

Aside from Salesforce.com (CRM) and Oracle (ORCL), enterprise heavyweights seem to be sitting out the early wave of iPhone apps (Techmeme, statement, iTunes 7.7 download, Apple update primer).

Here’s an early look at the most popular business apps–popular is a bit relative since the store is launched before the 3G iPhone and we’re all window shopping:

As you can see from the screenshot, Salesforce Mobile and Oracle Business Indicators (see gallery) are prominent. Other business apps fall into the more personal business category and focus on tracking expenses, yellow pages, flights and Bloomberg, which would probably be my first app downloaded since I’m a financial nerd.

Also see: Poll: Does your IT department plan to support the iPhone 3G, with its improved enterprise features?

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On the productivity side of the house, Apple’s App Store has a bunch of apps that I wouldn’t necessarily call must haves. A lot of to-do list sort of apps. Photobucket for iPhone and QuickLight I suppose are productive, but your IT department may beg to differ.

Perhaps things on the business side of the iPhone will pick up, but the early days will probably focus on the games. There’s no lack of selection there, which is probably why I’ll opt for a new iPod touch over an iPhone. I’m not going to bluff that the iPhone is going to make me more productive. I’ll stick to what works–an iPod touch with plenty of items to help me pass some time on the trains, planes and automobiles.

Update: Oracle announced more details about its Business Indicators iPhone application. The company said that the application leverages Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus [OBILEE] and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition. The applications are also based on services oriented architecture.

The Business Indicators software is targeted to metric happy CFOs initially, but will follow the initial release with ERP business approval processes, CRM apps and other modules.

Comments

[mollytjm]

update at 10:45 a.m.: and one of these is an app that makes Star Wars light saber noises when you wave your phone around. expect to see a lot of game playing on these iPhones, everywhere. my son called from Pentagon City Mall while in line at the Apple Store and said the demand is huge and expected to last all day, picking up after 5. it's taking about 10 minutes to activate the phone but the store is well staffed.