Just because it looks like an iPhone doesn't make it an iPhone. The reason the iPhone is successful in spite of it's bizarre lack of features (none of which I missed as much as I thought I would), high purchase price (but not that much worse than what I paid for my last Treo), overpriced plans (again, not really that much worse than my Treo), and cult-of-Apple creepiness (ok, no excuse for that) is that it's the only smartphone out there whose user interface experience can't be compared to eating a shit sandwich. 

For all of its plentiful faults, the user interface is an order of magnitude better than anything else out there. A bunch of other manufacturers slapping large glass touch screens and pretty icons on their phones do not make them iPhone clones. When you use the iPhone, it just feels polished. Like the interface was designed by artists and not engineers. I know I'm sounding like one of those Jobs sycophants that I would normally be kicking sand on, but that's just the way it is. When you actually use one of these things for a few weeks, you realize how crappy PalmOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and (ultimate evil) Blackberry are. When I have to use a friend's phone or tweak a customer's phone it's like going from an Austin Martin to a Geo Metro. 

And don't even get me started on the atrocious excremental experience that is BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Talk about a piece of software that's about as stable as Amy Winehouse after a week-long meth bender (right now). Having built-in ActiveSync or (gasp, choke) Lotus Notes support will be a hell of a lot better than the Rube Goldberg-designed mess that is BES.