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On March 6, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) will announce the iPhone software roadmap at a town hall-like meeting on its campus in Cupertino, Calif.
It will talk about the iPhone SDK and some new enterprise features.
The news has triggered wild speculation among the Apple user community: Why was the SDK release delayed? What exactly does Apple mean by "enterprise features?" Will that include -- horrible thought -- connectivity with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Exchange?
An SDK is a software development kit -- a set of programming tools that let coders hook into and create applications for a system or a platform.
On Oct. 17 last year, CEO Steve Jobs said in a post in Apple.com's Hot News section that the iPhone SDK would be released in February.
Was the SDK Late?
In his post, Jobs said Apple was trying to provide an open platform to developers while protecting iPhone users from viruses, Trojans and other malware.
That, analysts say, is why Apple held off releasing the SDK.
"They just had a few last security issues and wanted to make sure they knew how everything worked before they opened it up," IDC analyst Ryan Reith told MacNewsWorld.
"Apple claims, and we know now they were right, that the reason they didn't do the SDK initially and only had Web-based development was high concern about security issues and hacking issues," Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, told MacNewsWorld. "Now they've been able to understand what kind of hacks and security breaches would go on; they now are comfortable being able to create a dedicated SDK."
Gotta Open Up
While the Apple developer community is salivating at the thought of being able to play with an open SDK, launching the kit was essential for Apple.
The iPhone runs Web 2.0 applications -- more than 1,200 of them, Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook told a Goldman Sachs investment conference in San Francisco on Feb. 27.
However, Web-based applications run very slowly on the iPhone because it uses AT&T's (NYSE: T) EDGE network, which is no speed demon.
Users have complained about EDGE: "When I have to use EDGE, I just die ... I know what slow Internet is," Kevin Nunez wrote in a comment on Chris Pirillo's Web site. Pirillo is the host of TechTV's "Call for Help" program.
That slow speed prompted the hacker community to come up with dedicated applications that run locally on the iPhone.
"There's sprung up a separate community to create local applications -- from clocks to timers to newsfeeds -- that reside on the iPhone, run on the iPhone architecture, and so you don't have to go online to run an application," Bajarin said. "That's why, in the end, Apple is coming up with this SDK."
A lot of these applications were developed in Western Europe, Reith said, adding that Apple "can't afford to push back the launch of the SDK any longer, it's such an important product."
Opening up will also mean more business for Apple, which has recognized "that it isn't going to deliver every single application in and of itself to end users, and there's opportunities for Apple and the platform if it's opened up to let others play," JupiterResearch vice president and research director Michael Gartenberg told MacNewsWorld.
The Pinstripe-Suit Crowd
While Apple is being mysterious about its foray into the enterprise, we can glean some hints from Cook's recent presentation.
Apple could team up with new carriers, and is moving the iPhone from being a device to being a platform, he said.
If Apple unties itself from AT&T, it might be able to provide faster Web access; and, if it positions the iPhone as a platform, then it could take on the corporate BlackBerries and Palms by offering corporate-type applications.
For example, Research In Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry smartphone lets enterprises use push e-mail 
, where messages are automatically sent from a corporate e-mail network to the device. However, iPhone users have to manually pull down messages from their accounts, and this might be changed.
Distancing itself from AT&T is crucial for Apple in any case -- enterprises want to have a choice of carriers. Also, more than 25 percent of iPhones have been "unlocked" by users so they can run on other networks.
This costs Apple money because it cannot collect its cut of carrier fees from AT&T for those users.
Also, the proliferation of local applications is hampering revenue growth.
"It's third-party applications that increase revenue to vendors," Reith said. "Those applications the developer community is building are driving more consumer usage and functionality as well as data through the channels, which opens the eyes of the operator because it helps them make more money, and anything you can do to please the operator is important, even if you're Apple."
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