Cupertino (CA) - We still remember Steve Ballmer’s initial reaction to the iPhone laughing at the fact that it does not have a keyboard. The success of the device aside, it is clear that the lack of a keyboard is a problem for the iPhone and business customers. And what seemed impossible so far could become a reality next year - an iPhone with a physical keyboard that slides out from behind the screen.

Just when you are starting to believe Steve Jobs’ claims that the iPhone’s lack of a physical keyboard as a killer feature and begin to trust the technology not to break anytime soon (as, for example did the touch screen of the Treo 600), we are receiving first information that there may be a iPhone with a keyboard in the works. What we hear is that is already testing prototypes with some carriers and selected enterprises. Apparently, the handset will not be aimed at consumers since its primary purpose is to penetrate the enterprise where traditional physical keyboard is considered a necessary feature.

According to a Register article , Apple "did the math" and is prepping a corporate iPhone model with a slide-out keyboard that should augment the multi-touch screen and the virtual keyboard. The handset will be exclusively aimed at corporate customers and is slated to hit the market sometimes next year, the website writes. The author claims that Apple is all too aware that competing smartphones have one big advantage - a full QWERTY physical keyboard. For example, the best-selling smartphones from RIM, Danger, Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and HTC all have keyboards.

It appears that any device that lacks a physical keyboard is immediately dismissed as a potential business tool these days. For example, RIM’s co-CEO and president Mike Lazaridis said that RIM customers indicated they cannot type as fast on the iPhone’s virtual touch-screen based keyboard as they can on BlackBerry’s physical keyboard.