Phone envy, bringing the iPhone platform to the network

I usually try to stay away from piling on to Mitchell's blog posts, as it could be too much from both of us at the same company.  However, I think Mitchell's recent post on "Networking needs an iPhone" is so right on that I need to follow up (also his post one or two after that about our holiday party is pretty cool too). I have stayed away from all of the iPhone envy posts since Steve Jobs showed us all the future of the converged consumer platform at MacWorld.  Thats right I did not say a phone that plays music and videos too.  The functionality of the iPhone goes way beyond a phone marrying an iPod.  The iPhone is a consumer application platform as Mitchell points out. What the particular mix of applications it has at any given time is not important.  Because it is built on Apple's OSX, I think we will see applications come and go over time on this platform.  I also think that the hardware that it runs on will expand over time. You will have more options around HW platform then just storage space. 

If there is one place I don't agree with Apple on this one, it is that like everything Apple, it will only come on Apple HW (actually I don't like that Cingular/ATT has an exclusive and I dont like no 3G either, but I digress).  If Apple wanted to make the iPhone a true revolution it would license the software to multiple standard hardware platforms.

This is all something we have spent considerable time at StillSecure thinking about.  We look around at the network and UTM appliances out there and I see them using a router for a phone, a WAP for an iPod, a firewall for an email client.  In case I am not clear, what I am trying to say, is we see people using multiple boxes for network applications.  Can't someone make iPhone like software and create a platform for multiple network applications?  I think they can and am looking forward to seeing it!