Visto gets 3,000 iPhone email queries, eyes IPO

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Visto Corp has received queries from employees of about 3,000 companies about its plan to offer corporate e-mail to iPhone users this month, the mobile e-mail company's chief executive said on Tuesday.

Visto CEO Brian Bogosian also said the company may go public next year, helped by increasing demand for advanced mobile phones such as Apple Inc's iPhone which combines a Web browser and music player.

Bogosian said the inquiries from both technology managers and individual employees were not a firm indication of the actual number of orders it would receive, but the volume of requests may signal strong demand for such a service.

"Almost 3,000 enterprises have signed up to say they want to be able to use iPhone for Visto e-mail," he said in an interview, referring to U.S. companies.

Visto, which plans to launch its iPhone service on Sept. 30 in the United States, is offering it directly to customers as it does not have an agreement with either Apple or AT&T Inc, the exclusive U.S. provider for iPhone.

AT&T has said applications such as mobile e-mail are something it would look at, spokesman Mark Siegel said. Apple has said it has pilot programs with a handful of companies to support corporate e-mail on the device.

Apple, which has sold 1 million phones so far in the United States and expects to sell 10 million worldwide by the end of 2008, announced its first European operator agreement for the iPhone on Tuesday.

Bogosian did not give a specific estimate for how many iPhone customers he expects Visto to sign up but estimated that more than one-fifth of iPhone customers "might have some interest in getting work e-mail on their phone."