CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple wants the iPhone to become a corporate e-mail gadget — and a portable video-game machine. It’s also teaming with a prominent venture-capital firm to offer a substantial kitty — $100 million — to lure developers to the iPhone.
Apple unveiled new software Thursday that reflects its intensifying effort to court business customers and placate third-party developers who want to build iPhone applications but have been locked out.
Apple is tweaking the iPhone to support Microsoft’s Exchange software, which addresses a key weakness in the gadget and puts it in direct competition with the BlackBerry and Treo smart phones.
Apple also said it was opening the iPhone to third-party developers and will sell the applications they create for it through the App Store, a new vehicle to approve and distribute games and other iPhone programs.
