Phil Schiller, head of worldwide marketing for the maker of the iPhone, iPod and Mac line of computers, announced at Apple's headquarters interoperability with corporate email systems such as Microsoft Exchange.

"The iPhone can now work directly with the Exchange server," Schiller said, adding that it would enable corporate e-mail, contacts and calendars, Reuters reports. "We have licensed the ActiveSync protocol [from Microsoft]," said Schiller.

The new capabilities will be allegedly delivered via a software update due in June. At that time, Apple's successful gadget will also get enterprise-friendly security features, including remote wipe, support for Cisco IPsec VPN, certificates, identities, and WPA2/802.11x support.

Details were given about the iPhone SDK. Steve Jobs said developers will use Cocoa Touch, a new SDK for the iPhone, and they will keep 70 percent of the revenues. Third-party applications will be deployed through the AppStore, which will come included with the next iPhone software update.

During Apple's shareholder meeting on Tuesday, Steve Jobs explained that iPhone does not and will not offer Adobe Flash support. The full-blown PC Flash version "performs too slow to be useful" on the iPhone, and a mobile version called Flash Lite "is not capable of being used with the Web," Jobs said Tuesday.

Apple is under pressure because its shares are down 35 percent this year to tap into some corporate markets. This means that Apple might come in direct competition with Research In Motion (RIMM), whose BlackBerry devices now dominate the wireless e-mail market.

Apple has had to deal with waves of criticism regarding its policy to close iPhone deals with only a few carriers and still reaching high in terms of sales (10 million projected by the end of the year), but the company refuses to make a compromise and make the unlocked version of the phone available for carriers around the world.

Recently, China Mobile Communications Corporation, also known as China Mobile or CMCC, the largest mobile phone operator in China, expressed interest to start talks with Apple regarding the iPhone distribution. Last year there were rumors that Apple’s officials have tried to nail a deal with China Mobile, but nothing was officially confirmed.