A subsidiary of Cisco, WebEx, has developed a way for corporate users of the iPhone to access Outlook e-mail with a service called PCNow, according to Business Week on Wednesday. While some remain skeptical about such creative measures, the solution could be perfect for smaller companies.

The service, which costs $12.95 per month, allows corporate users of the iPhone to access Outlook e-mail, contacts, and files on their office PCs. There is a discount for volume purchases and an annual contract.

WebEx is not the only company that has offered iPhone users services to connect to corporate servers and e-mail. Previously, iPO has mentioned Visto and Synchronica. Others include Funambol and Sybase. However, none of these services achieve the formal goal of satisfying the most security conscious IT managers who really want Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync, licensed by Nokia and others.

Whether Apple has discussed that with Microsoft is not known, but Apple has, according to BW, had some discussions with Good Technology about secure mobile e-mail.

"All these [new] methods are creative, but they generally would violate most enterprises' security policy," said Ken Dulaney, vice-president at consulting firm Gartner. He noted that some of these enterprising methods can open up security holes. While the largest corporations and government facilities aggressively prevent that, the new breed of tools could work for some smaller companies with a more flexible approach to security.

No doubt, there will be continuing entrepreneurial efforts to meet the needs of those in companies of all sizes and needs who want to use the iPhone in the enterprise.