Apple is beginning to gain sales from enterprise customers - even as corporate IT spending shrinks, the latest ChangeWave survey reveals.

ChangeWave has announced some of the findings from its latest corporate IT purchasing survey, findings which show the downturn in the US economy is "far from over", and point to an even greater pullback occurring in corporate spending. "At the same time, the Apple iPhone is beginning to gain traction in the corporate marketplace even as RIM maintains a big market share lead," observed ChangeWave Research director, Paul Carton.

While RIM dominates the corporate spending sector with 79 per cent of corporate buyers planning a smartphone purchase electing a BlackBerry, Apple continues to gain ground, with 17% of corporate buyers planning a smartphone purchase electing an iPhone, the researchers said.

"Apple continues to show considerable momentum in terms of corporate planned purchases - up 4-pts from previously," Carton observed. "In short, while recent ChangeWave consumer surveys have shown the iPhone 3G having a huge impact on consumer demand, the current results show the iPhone is beginning to gain real traction in the corporate market as well."

And ChangeWave's research also confirmed the emergence of an iPhone halo: "In yet another positive for Apple, 19% report the release of the 3G iPhone has made their company More Likely to purchase Apple products in the future - only 1% say Less Likely. Thus, the 3G iPhone release appears to be having a positive 'halo effect' in terms of improved overall corporate purchasing intentions for Apple products in general," researchers said.

Despite the good Apple news, the survey of 1,947 respondents involved with IT spending in their organization and conducted August 11-21 revealed some gloom. "We asked respondents if their 3rd Quarter IT spending was on track to date, and the results were the worst we've seen in a ChangeWave survey," Carton adds.

Three-in-ten (30%) say they've spent "Less than Planned" - 3-pts worse than our May survey. Just 12% have spent "More than Planned." And 29% of respondents said their company's IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the fourth Quarter.

Economic worries, slowed comsumer spending, high energy costs and instability in the wake of the upcoming election were all cited as inhibitors to purchase plans by the researchers.