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Although the iPhone won't increase Microsoft's market share in mobile devices, it directly positions Exchange as the only email server that supports the iPhone, Microsoft's own mobile devices, and pretty much anything other than RIM's BlackBerry.

The iPhones new and updated features including global address list, Cisco IPsec VPN, authentication and certifications, enterprise-class Wi-Fi security policies, enterprise configuration tools, and remote wipe will make the iPhone and Microsoft's Exchange firm partners in the business enterprise space.

And aside from the Cisco VPN, that's the exact feature set Microsoft put into Exchange 2007 and System Center to manage the host of new mobile devices that want to talk to Exchange.

Getting back to the other player in the big Apple iPhone game, Cisco with its IPsec VPN client is necessary for the Exchange to work because enabling full functionality there requires the iPhone to be a full client on the network.

However, from a users perspective there will be a whole lot of users of Juniper, Netgear, SonicWall and the host of other companies making SMB VPN gateways that will either need to buy Cisco or move to a Windows server to act as the gateway.

So perhaps the word for Microsoft today should be : Symbiotic