You may have read that T-Mobile is being bought by Orange. As someone with a keen eye on the mobile market, it occurs to me that this little merger will take up to two years to get sorted. I suspect that in that time, with the resulting slightly chaotic administration of a two-into-one deal, sales chaps from T-Mobile will sign off better-than-usual deals.

Why? Well, they are probably desperate to hit bonus in a sticky market, but they also may think that, with the companies merging, they can give a phenomenal deal – the type that would not normally get signed off – and leave Orange to deal with it later. Have a look if you are in the market for a corporate contract.

Talking of phones, there appears to be a four-way battle for supremacy in the business phone market. BlackBerry you know about, and it dominates. Microsoft you’d be forgiven for having forgotten about. Apple iPhone and Google Android are sneaking up at the rear.

I do wonder if BlackBerry dominance is as a result of being first to market with a product that worked, and little else. Microsoft has a product that works, but to my mind no clear strategy on how to get it into more people’s pockets. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard people talk about their BlackBerry when it’s actually a Microsoft device they have. BlackBerry is almost not really a trade name these days – it's more of a generic noun.

Apple, having wetted taste buds in the residential sector, must be thinking how to attack the commercials. A proper Microsoft Exchange add-on and some security is really all they need. Not hard for a company of that size. In your own time, Mr Jobs.I see a few IT directors with iPhones nowadays. So far, all of them have a BlackBerry for work and an iPhone for personal use. In other words they carry two devices. Forgive me for being schoolma’am-ish, but isn’t one of the basic principles of computing that we don’t duplicate stuff? Leads me to think that iPhones are just there to be stroked lovingly by adoring owners. Rather like a pet. So there you have it: iPhones are pet substitutes. Forget Tamagotchi, this is the real thing.

So where does Google's Android fit in? There are a few handsets around sporting Google’s operating platform, and a wealth of apps in the Android market place. It's a bit like the Apple store: lots of games and plenty of interesting but ultimately faintly ridiculous programmes. You need an Android machine to view them all, though. What a splendidly foolish concept. Top marks to the marketeers for that. Spend a couple of hundred quid before we show you what’s available for it? I think not. Have another think about that one, Google.