Business Account Brainstorm

[erch63]

I own a small business, I would like to purchase four iPhones for my employees for business use. I have been talking to tons of people at At&T, and even Apple. No one seems to be able, or interested to answer my questions. Please let's not turn this into a "get a blackberry, treo etc..." post. I have decided on the iphone provided these potential business deal breakers can be corrected.

Here is what I have been told, any input or corrections for the masses would be greatly appreciated.

1) A business cannot cannot open an account for the service, it must be done through a specific person under a family plan.

2) There is no way to specifically identify a user on the plan, it is not possible to have the caller id of each phone reflect actually who is using it. I am currently with Sprint, with 4 phones, I am able to adjust the user of each phone number to show who actually has the phone. I just feel this is more professional then having some unknown name show up on a landline caller id.

If these are indeed the case and are not changed the iPhone will never be able to be used for small business, which makes me wonder why. The rest of the products from Apple have decent small business support. Am I just ahead of the curve adopting the iphone for business, or can it be done?

 

[alFR]

Why don't you buy 4 on your business credit card, activate each of them (using a computer in your office) in the name of the person who will be using it, then set the payment options to point to your business's bank account? Not quite the same as having a specific business account, but....

 

[erch63]

Thank you for the idea, however doesn't the cost of each phone increase greatly especially with minute sharing and add a line promotions?

 

[alFR]

True, it would be more expensive than having one business account as each one would be billed separately.