Courtesy of Apple IPhone 3G

This is a stunner for Apple and its iPhone, and just goes to show why Research in Motion and its BlackBerry have a little more to worry about: JD Power and Associates ranked the iPhone highest in customer satisfaction, not for everyday consumers as you might expect. But for "business wireless smartphone users."

Why is that significant? Remember that Apple

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[AAPL  Loading...      ()   ]set out to build a smartphone for consumers that hopefully business users would eventually adopt. It was a way to address the market that RIM

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[RIMM  Loading...      ()   ]had practically ignored by creating a business-friendly BlackBerry at the expense of the kinds of things consumers really wanted, like multimedia, cameras, games, etc. It would appear, based on the JD Power report this morning, that business users like what they see when it comes to iPhone.

The study, in its second year now, measures five key factors: Ease of operation; operating system; physical design; handset features; battery aspects. Apple ranked highest among overall smartphone customer satisfaction with a score of 778 out of 1,000, "performing particularly well in the ease of operation, physical design and handset factors." Apple was followed by BlackBerry (a score of 703) and Samsung (701).

"With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Apple has clearly differentiated itself from the competition in areas that are most important to business smartphone users,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services for J.D. Power and Associates says in the release. “By making basic applications and features easy to use and providing functionality in a thin, lightweight device, Apple has performed well in exceeding customer expectations."

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The news from JD Power also comes amid growing concerns over iPhone production at Apple. Just yesterday, UBS released a note saying iPhone shipments could run between 4 million and 5 million units in its current quarter, down as much as 2 million units from the quarter before. That follows the call last week from FBR suggesting the same kind of slowdown.

Maybe the JD Power report will have a little influence over on-the-fence IT managers looking to trade-up handsets who can now view iPhone as a viable alternative to whatever they're using now. If they haven't started believing that already.

As an aside, I've just started using the BlackBerry Bold. It's a snappy little phone, and beats the Curve (which I was using prior) hands down. Gorgeous display, nice little tweaks to the OS, the video camera is nice and it feels great. For those of us who are still old school, and touch-screen averse, the Bold seems like a great upgrade. Pretty sure that $299 pricetag will still scare off a lot of potential customers, especially when they can get an iPhone for $100 cheaper. But if you're dyed-in-the-wool Crackberry, the Bold is a heck of a fix.

Meantime, with today's JD Power report, RIM's gotta worry about Apple, both for consumer and enterprise customers. And as I've written before, if IT managers give the nod to iPhone, can an enterprise upgrade to Mac be that far behind?

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