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Rim prepares for iPhone keyboard battle as quarter million HSBC staff hope for iPhones

The "great iPhone keyboard" debate may be about to move into a new phase, with the prospect of a quarter of a million new corporate users inside HSBC - the bank which is thinking of dumping the Blackberry, says one report.

At the same time, Research In Motion is close to releasing its so-called "iPhone killer" - the Blackberry Bold, with first UK shipments predicted for this week, through Orange - beating T-Mobile's earlier predictions that it would be first.

The main differences between the two phones come down to the iPhone's huge screen, versus Blackberry's full qwerty keyboard. Operators have, till now, been putting strong pressure on Apple to offer a "corporate version" of the cult mobile, with a slide-out keyboard for office workers. But if HSBC goes for it without keyboard, Apple may decide to resist those pressures.

Liam Tung broke the HSBC story yesterday, reporting:

Most corporations passed on the iPhone when it was first released, due to limited availability and the device's lack of support for Microsoft's Exchange email platform. However, Apple has rectified both issues, and has additionally built a number of tools into the new iPhone 3G specifically targeted at corporate use.

And he quoted Brenton Hush, chief information officer for HSBC in Australia and New Zealand, as saying that the bank was "looking at rolling out Apple's iPhone" across its worldwide workforce of 300,000.

"Looking at" isn't the same as "placing an order" and Hush will be looking at a lot more than just those two handsets. And a quarter of a million users around the world isn't the same as in any one country; the decision, if taken, may not impress operators - especially those who don't have iPhone franchises. And in some countries, the choice of operator may come ahead of the choice of handset for many IT buyers.

But the headline will shake those operators - notably Vodafone - who have received prototype iPhones with pullout keyboards, where the requirement for a full set of QWERTY buttons has been an absolute in the past.

According to Madeline Bennett, UK operator Orange "has confirmed that this weekend it will start selling the high-end BlackBerry Bold, the first of its kind to offer HSDPA high-speed data access, while retailer The Carphone Warehouse also expects to have the devices in store as early as 16 August." An Orange spokesperson confirmed that the device "will be in Orange channels on Saturday".

The two devices have been seized and compared by Claudine Beaumont and Matt Warman at the Telegraph newspaper. Their review scores the Bold ahead of the iPhone on satnav function (the iPhone can't respond quickly enough to do turn-by-turn) while the iPhone (unsurprisingly) scores way ahead on looks and style, and (obviously) on multimedia and Web surfing. "If the iPhone had the ability to edit documents on the go, it would be the perfect business device," they conclude.

On the subject of email, their side-by-side analysis shows:

iPhone 3g

The iPhone can collect emails as soon as they hit your computer inbox. Setting up a connection to my work email account took 90 seconds. The iPhone loses marks, however, for lacking some high‑end business functions; you can open, but not edit, Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, for instance. Typing on the virtual keyboard takes some getting used to.

BlackBerry Bold

The full-sized keyboard means that you can type long emails comfortably, and you can open and edit documents with applications such as "Word to Go". Connecting to corporate email accounts is straightforward (assuming you've been set up by your company to do so). You can also connect the Bold to your computer and use it as a modem.Click on illustration below for full review.