SAN FRANCISCO (Bloomberg) - Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, seeking to sell 10 million iPhones this year, added business features to woo customers from the BlackBerry and will let outside developers create programs for the handset.

Apple will push corporate e-mails to the phone, support Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange message system and offer new security functions, officials said yesterday at a company event at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. They also gave details of a software toolkit that lets outsiders write applications.

The moves will help court business users, who have largely shunned the iPhone and limited its appeal to consumers. The phone has lagged behind Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry, and support for popular systems such as Exchange could play a key role in winning over technology managers at companies.

"The iPhone now fits a lot better in the enterprise and can compete effectively against RIM (Research in Motion) and Nokia," said Simon Yates, an analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc.

The company tested the links with the Exchange program with big customers including Walt Disney Co. and Nike Inc., senior vice-president Phil Schiller said after joining Mr. Jobs on stage to show off the features.

Apple released the iPhone in June and had sold four million through to January 15, earning third place in the market for mobile phones that serve up e-mail and web pages. Its e-mail features, through services such as Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., have been better suited for consumers until now.

Apple aims to win one percent of the market for mobile phones, which may total about one billion devices this year, according to Mr. Jobs. The company had 6.5 percent of the global market for so-called smart-phones in the fourth quarter, less than Finland's Nokia Oyj and Research In Motion, said researcher Canalys.

In the US, Apple's 28 percent market share made it second behind the BlackBerry, which held 41 percent. Palm Inc. came in third with nine percent, Reading, England-based Canalys said.

Apple, also maker of the iPod media player and Macintosh computer, fell 39 cents to $124.10 at 1.51pm New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Before yesterday, the shares had declined 37 percent this year on concern that an economic slump in the US may lead consumers to curb spending.

"New features could address issues that are limiting iPhone penetration in the enterprise," UBS AG analyst Benjamin Reitzes told investors last week after Apple said it would announce "exciting new enterprise features."

New York-based Reitzes, the second-ranked computer analyst according to Institutional Investor, is one of 22 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who recommend investors buy Apple shares.

Apple's development kit was originally due to be released last month. The iPhone is built on the same operating system software used by the Mac. More than 750,000 developers write programs for the Mac.

The kit can also be used to write programs for the iPod Touch, a player that has the same color touch screen as the iPhone, Apple said.

Mr. Jobs originally opposed giving developers the ability to modify the phone because he was concerned that would open it up to viruses and piracy. He changed his stance after programmers began writing applications anyway and distributing them on the Internet, bypassing Apple's built-in software for preventing unauthorised use.