A report from ChangeWave Research shows that in comparison to February 2007, when Palm was on the shopping lists of 22 percent of companies surveyed, the iPhone has recently gained 5 points in corporate market share, making it the second most popular business phone with a 14 percent share.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they planned to buy BlackBerrys for their employees in the next quarter, compared with 22 percent who plan on buying iPhones and just 5 percent planning on buying a Palm product. In August the results had RIM at 79 percent, Apple at 17 percent, and Palm at 6 percent.

The gains came largely at the expense of Palm, who dropped 4 points while falling into third place overall with an 11 percent share. However, Apple was also able to grab a share point away from larger rival RIM, who still has a commanding lead in the market.

The news about Apple's breakthrough arrives amid troubling data from corporate IT purchasing surveys, which shows "a collapse in US business spending of historic proportions." In fact, the spending projections in the first quarter of 2009 are the worst ever seen by ChangWave in its studies since 2001, with an unprecedented 45 percent of respondents saying their company's IT budget will decrease or completely collapse.

Nevertheless, the ChangeWave results indicate that some companies are buying smartphones from more than one vendor, as last week's report on the iPhone in business noted as a growing trend. The survey fails to break out results by operating system, which shafts Windows Mobile to some degree.