Software-as-a-service company Skyytek apparently isn’t listening to Gartner’s nay saying about corporate iPhone use. The company is adopting the iPhone for its mobile employees and is testing it with its on-demand ERP/CRM system, NetSuite. What’s also interesting here is ERP as a mobile phone app. Read Skyytec’s evaluation here.

Another company bringing business apps to the phone is Swedish software company HansaWorld. New offerings for the UK market for PDAs and Nokia business phones include credit card payment processing and filing your income tax.

If you’re an AT&T Pro, Elite and FastAccess customer you now have free WiFi access at any AT&T hotspot. Other customers get access for $1.99 a month. Fierce Broadband Wireless seems to think that iPhone customers are excluded.

TCM Net has launched a new channel on Voice Peering. The value proposition here is connecting calls without touching the PSTN.

Jajah for the iPhone — not! So says Scott Gilbertson of Wired.

Rumor Mill: Full 3G iPhone service by Christmas according to virtual journalist Robert X. Cringley.

Global businesses have big plans for mobile handsets. That’s according to UK research firm Coleman Parkes Research. Seven out of 10 expect to be using mobile VoIP within two years and many are already a variety of business applications. But with the new flexibility comes a whole new dimension of security and management challenges. Robert Jacques at vunet.com has the story.

But while businesses see huge benefits to mobile VoIP, mobile carriers have been circling the wagons, blocking mobile VoIP calls and writing restrictive terms into their contracts. Now UK mobile VoIP provider Vyke is fighting back with a standalone software upgrade that circumvents the removal of handset VoIP capabilities by carriers.

“The incumbent mobile network operators must be feeling very threatened by mobile VoIP,” observed Vyke Communications CEO Kjetil Bøhn in today’s press release. “In the short amount of time that this immerging technology has been in the market, they have already responded by removing VoIP capabilities from mobile handsets that they sell and by introducing very restrictive contract terms prohibiting their customers from using their networks to access services such as VoIP and third party peer-to-peer messaging clients. Vyke has been dedicating itself to circumventing these obstructionist tactics by developing our own stand-alone mobile VoIP application as well as providing access to large scale wireless networks on behalf of our customers.”

Even sweeter for customers, Vyke’s agreement last month with WiFi hotspot provider The Cloud Networks gives subscribers free access through any of the Cloud’s 9,500 UK and European hotspots.

Spanish WiFi company Fon says it has given away 7,000 routers to people living next to a Starbucks to encourage them to provide free or cheap Internet access to the ubiquitous café’s customers. Not surprisingly, the program is called Fonbucks. Mark Kapco at RCR Wireless News has the story.

Last week Truphone announced a whole slew of new features including SMS over IP for unlimited free texting, automatic WiFi network connection, and support for multiple SIM cards.

Steve Jobs has a solution for the AT&T’s sluggish Internet connection, which he outlined in a June 29 Wall Street Journal interview: “What we’ve done with the iPhone is we’ve made it so that it will automatically switch to a known Wi-Fi network whenever it finds it. So you don’t have to go hunting around, resetting the phone, flipping a switch or doing anything. Most of us have Wi-Fi networks around us most of the time at home and at work. There’s often times a Wi-Fi network that you can join whether you’re sitting in a coffee shop or even walking along the street piggybacking on somebody’s home Wi-Fi network. What we found is the combination is working really well.”

I particularly like the part about piggybacking on someone else’s home network. Sounds like the wonder boy of Cupertino lives in a separate ethical universe from the rest of us mere mortals. One where it might be OK to, say, share music online without paying iTunes $.99.

Industry disruption specialist Jajah is jumping on the Apple iPhone bandwagon to promote its mobile Jajah service. This isn’t anything new, but it’s certainly timely to remind customers — if they can get the iPhone service connected, of course — that there is an alternative to AT&T’s extortionate rates.

Your smartphone just got smarter. Toronto-based Voice On the Go just announced its hands-free service that lets you:

• Listen to email, both a summary and details
• Compose, reply and delete emails
• Review your calendar and make appointments
• Search contacts and place calls
• Dial a phone number

Voice on the Go works with any phone or BlackBerry smartphone on any network and no download. It’s available in the US and Canada and some European cities. The company also offers an enterprise version.

And now that every mobile phone is as smart as a PDA and a whole lot cooler, it’s easy to forget PDA pioneer Palm. This week Palm founder Jeff Hawkins unveils what the company is calling a “new category of mobile device.” A webcast is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. PDT on Wednesday.

When is the Internet not democratizing communications? When it’s delivered by a big telecom company apparently. AT&T and Qwest have been accused of “cherry picking” affluent neighborhoods for IPTV offers, says PC World’s Mark Sullivan.

Nevertheless, almost 60 million people are going to be watching some kind of IPTV by 2012, says research firm Parks Associates. And if they’re in Japan, they’re going to have a lot of choices because a Japanese panel has proposed loosening copyright laws to allow anyone to post broadcast content as long as they pay a compulsory fee.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Apparently that’s what Deutche Telecom is thinking as it joins in a $20 million funding round for Web-based VoIP startup (or is it upstart?) Jajah. Intel is also in on the party.

JAJAH founder Roman Scharf today announced that VoIP is dead.

Scharf shared this insight at the ETRE (European Technology Roundtable Exhibition) in Barcelona today. Scharf’s point is that - as I keep saying - people just want to make phone calls. They don’t want to have to be networking gurus, they don’t want to add another layer of technology to their lives. They want to pick up the phone, get a dial tone and make a call. Period.

Imagine if 100 years ago people had to know as much about analog telephony as those of us using VoIP have to know about IP technology. The telephone would be a footnote in the proverbial dustbin of history. Maybe Scharf’s right.

In the last few months you’ve probably seen Comcast’s TV ads featuring Bill and Karolyn Slowsky, the turtles who like their Internet like they move - slow. Now OPEX Communications wants to lure the Slowskys onto the VoIP bandwagon.

On Wednesday, Elk Grove, IL-based OPEX introduced its Web-based Click-2-Dial VoIP. The service appears to be identical to what JAJAH has been offering for the past year: Enter the number you want to call into the Web site and OPEX connects the call and rings your phone. OPEX is charging $10/month for the service.

OPEX is taking an interesting marketing tack - promoting VoIP to dial-up users. Despite dramatic growth in broadband, dial-up still represents a significant part of the market - slightly less than half of all U.S. Internet users according to market research company Nielsen/NetRatings. That’s 61 million callers who feel left out of the VoIP revolution.

“Although DSL and Cable broadband users benefit from OPEX Click-2- Dial, the dial-up user is no longer discriminated against,” said OPEX CEO Thomas Jacobs in a yesterday’s press release. “OPEX Click-2-Dial is truly a user friendly service enjoyed by any consumer who wants to take advantage of Voice Over the Internet technology and its savings benefits, without all the baggage that comes with it.”

Located in Elk Grove, IL OPEX has been reselling telecom services since 1998 and began reselling BroadVox VoIP as part of its service plans in 2005. The company’s focus is on residential and small business service, including plans for home businesses and even a cell service specifically for occasional callers with no monthly fee and a $.10/ minute rate.