Mobile business tools

An iPhone application called FrontPocket, built by Jacksonville, Florida-based design firm Updatable, launched today. It behaves as a mobile extension to 37signals’ Backpack service, a business organization and data sharing utility. As any 37signals fan might intuit, a development of this type must be one thing above all: simple and straightforward. The better to conform to the less-is-more ethos maintained by the team behind Backpack and its siblingware. I think it’s safe to say FrontPocket can feel right at home with family.

The iPhone has been making headway in its battle to become a business-ready tool. Obviously, the addition of Microsoft Exchange support was a big step towards being considered a viable alternative to the traditional smartphones used at work, like Blackberry and Windows Mobile. However, beyond simply supporting enterprise email, the iPhone platform has a lot of potential to cater to the needs of its business users, too.

As Apple layers in iPhone support for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and iWork in order to make the device more appealing to business users, Zimbra’s latest release hopes to take advantage of this and help the iPhone become a savvy mobile business tool across the board.