Oracle and Salesforce offer iPhone business apps

A growing roster of enterprise software companies are offering products for the iPhone

Oracle and Salesforce have unveiled business applications for the iPhone available on Apple's newly launched iPhone 3G App Store.

The database vendor announced a series of free business intelligence applications, kicking off with a downloadable version of Business Indicators.

Customers must have already purchased Oracle's business intelligence software in order to make use of the reports, analytics and alerts that get pushed to the phone.

Salesforce, meanwhile, has confirmed availability of its CRM applications and Force.com 'platform-as-a-service' using a Salesforce mobile application on the iPhone also downloadable via the App Store.

The announcements coincide with the opening of the App Store and this week's launch of the much-hyped iPhone 3G.

Apple will be hoping that support from the likes of Oracle and Salesforce will help it challenge the BlackBerry in the enterprise arena.

A growing roster of enterprise software companies are offering products for the iPhone, including NetSuite and Pentaho.

"Today's business executives and managers are highly mobile, as are their information needs," said Ed Abbo, senior vice president of application development at Oracle.

"We are excited to build out applications on the iPhone platform to support these highly mobile customers."

The English language version of Oracle Business Indicators is also available via Apple's iTunes store.