Intel’s hunt for new foundry business may well end in a deal with Apple to fab the company’s “A” series chips. That’s the word on the street, anyway, most recently codified by Citigroup analyst Glen Yueng, who says the supply chain chatter he’s hearing suggests a foundry partnership between the two companies may be in the offing.

“We believe a foundry relationship may be forming between Intel and Apple,” Yeung says. “Our discussions with the hardware supply chain tend to support this belief. Intel has previously acknowledged they would be amenable to such a relationship, under the right conditions.”

Among those conditions, says Yeung: An agreement from Apple to someday convert from an ARM-based core for handsets and tablets to x86, which would essentially give Intel Apple’s chip business. That would obviously be a huge win for Intel, as it stands to gain much from Apple’s market share in smartphones and tablets.

But there is one problem. Apple’s A4 and A5 chips are based on an ARM design and Intel isn’t exactly a big fan of ARM. Asked during Intel’s recent investor meeting if the company would consider fabbing chips based on the ARM architecture, CEO Paul Otellini had this to say: “The short answer is ‘No’.”

A foundry partnership with Apple would require a rethinking of that answer, at least for the short term. And Intel certainly could do it. It has the necessary ARM licenses. It just needs to convince Apple to migrate its mobile devices over to its forthcoming low-power x86-based chips next year.

IBM engineer William Bodin needed a way to communicate easily with a team of developers halfway around the world. So he turned to an application, created by colleagues, that could be downloaded to his smartphone and that let him collaborate securely with co-workers in Vietnam—even when he was sitting rink-side at his son’s hockey practice.

Bodin, IBM’s mobile chief technology officer, has since created an online storefront that gives employees across IBM (IBM) access to similar downloadable apps. The store is called Whirlwind, and in the six weeks since it opened, it has been used by more than 11,000 employees. “People love the concept,” Bodin says.

Staff at IBM headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., use the programs for everything from scheduling conference rooms to approving purchase orders, from accessing marketing materials to logging onto the internal social network, Bluepages. They can also rate apps according to their usefulness. Previously, employees couldn’t carry out many of these tasks unless they were logged onto a desktop PC or a network-linked laptop. With apps, whether they’re created within IBM or by outside programmers, workers can handle all these jobs from a handheld device.

Corporate Evolution
The rising popularity of Whirldwind and the apps it brings together in a single storefront reflects a shift under way across industries. By 2015, about half of the devices on corporate networks will be mobile, according to an Oct. 14 report from Forrester Research (FORR). Sales of Internet-enabled mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and e-readers, have already surpassed those of Internet-enabled laptops, notebooks, and desktop computers, says Andrew Jaquith, a Forrester senior analyst.

As companies spend more money developing mobile apps or buying them from third-party programmers, the North American market for mobile office applications may surge to $6.85 billion in 2015, from $1.76 billion in 2010, according to analysis by Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm.

Google (GOOG) also has created an internal mobile app store. Employees go there to get software for such tasks as expense reporting or finding free conference rooms. “I would not call them rocket science apps, but they’re very practical, pragmatic apps that Googlers need throughout the day,” says Dave Girourard, president of Google Enterprise. The company also uses the store to test some apps before they’re released to the public, through a site that showcases apps for the Android operating system. “It’s actually a model we want to deliver to companies around the world so they can have their own app store for Android apps,” Girourard says.

Not Just BlackBerrys
App use is surging in the workplace as more companies, including Kraft Foods (KFT) and SAP’s (SAP:GR) Sybase business, become comfortable letting employees use smartphones for work. “The first hurdle was to allow these devices to connect securely to the enterprise,” says Jaquith at Forrester. It’s not just Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry anymore, either. In October, Apple (AAPL) said the iPhone is being deployed or tested by 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies and the iPad is being used or tested by 65 percent of Fortune 100 companies. Users of the iPhone and iPad have access to more than 280,000 apps in Apple’s App Store.

Apple (AAPL) has also taken steps to make it easier to create iPhone and iPad apps for employees. Its iOS enterprise developer program gives programmers access to resources for $299 a year that will help them develop proprietary, in-house applications.

Smaller companies, including Apperian, Mobile Iron, JackBe and Ondeego, specialize in software or services to help companies open mobile app stores. About 50 companies have signed up for an Apperian program called EASE, for enterprise application services environment, and they’re working on as few as two to as many as 20 apps apiece, says Cimarron Buser, vice-president for marketing at Apperian.

IT Headaches
Useful as workplace apps may be, they also pose challenges for company information technology staffs. In the past, IT departments controlled worker mobile devices, which were mostly limited to BlackBerrys. Now they need to accommodate a broader range of mobile operating systems, including Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7, sold by a range of wireless network operators. “There’s not a single operator that can handle all the devices,” says Paul Nerger, vice-president for marketing at Ondeego. “What makes a company think they can do it?” Ondeego sells a product called Appcentral that lets companies distribute apps to employees and another product called Appguard that lets the IT manager secure the application. If an employee leaves the company, the IT manager can wipe the corporate apps on that device, one by one. PepsiCo is an Ondeego customer.

IBM and Google take different approaches to corporate policies for using mobile devices. IBM now only lets BlackBerry apps on Whirlwind, though it’s testing other mobile devices, including iPhones and Android handsets, and engineers are writing apps for iPhone and Android devices. The apps will probably be added to Whirlwind once the company approves other devices, Bodin says. Google, on the other hand, lets employees pick from an array of smartphones, says Google’s Girourard. Most employees work outside the corporate network, and systems that house secret proprietary information, such as source code, are strictly guarded.

Another way IBM encourages use of Whirlwind is by letting employees write their own apps and upload them to the store. The process is so easy, Bodin says, that he was able to add an app to Whirlwind in October while he was waiting for a doctor’s appointment to begin.

Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said the company’s wireless arm expects to introduce its own form of tiered pricing, possibly over the next four to six months.

But Mr. Seidenberg said Verizon Wireless’s offering wouldn’t simply copy rival carrier AT&T Inc. “We didn’t need to be first on tiered pricing,” he said during an investor conference on Thursday. “We’re not sure we agree yet with how they valued the data.”

The wireless industry has struggled to balance the increasing demand for data capacity with unlimited plans that cap how much revenue carriers can generate from their subscribers. The dynamic has pressured the carriers, who need to pour billions of dollars into their networks to ensure that the traffic flows smoothly.

Mr. Seidenberg said the introduction of new products and services—likely in conjunction with the launch of fourth-generation wireless services—would allow Verizon Wireless to introduce a tiered pricing structure. The carrier would follow AT&T, which earlier this year introduced a two-tiered data structure with caps on how much data can be used. But Mr. Seidenberg said the tiers and bundled offerings would be different.

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, is also hoping its move to 4G will spur suppliers—including Apple Inc.—to build products for the carrier, Mr. Seidenberg said.

“At some point, Apple will get with the program,” he said during Thursday’s investor conference.

Verizon Wireless has long coveted the Apple iPhone, which has an exclusive deal with AT&T. The lack of the iPhone has forced Verizon Wireless to develop a stronger lineup of smartphones on its own, and Mr. Seidenberg expects the move to a 4G technology called Long-Term Evolution will attract more suppliers and mobile devices.

“We don’t feel like we have an iPhone deficit,” Mr. Seidenberg said. “We would love to carry it, but we have to earn it.”

Mr. Seidenberg declined to comment on speculation that Verizon Wireless would get the iPhone some time next year. “I can’t speak for Apple,” he said.

Unlike skeptics concerned about slowing growth in the wireless sector, Mr. Seidenberg said the move to 4G will spur the next stage of growth for the industry. He said the penetration rate for 4G services and products is likely to be 200% to 300%, meaning that he expects individual consumers to have more than one device with a wireless plan.

On the issue of whether Verizon Wireless will pay a dividend, Mr. Seidenberg said he is open to a cash distribution from the wireless arm that would go to parents Verizon and Vodafone. But he said he wouldn’t consider paying a dividend until after the capital structure of the business improves and the company’s debt level falls. He said there is “no clock” regarding a potential dividend.