Small businesses in IT and IT support experts working under and Orange telephone contract may rejoice at news that the telecommunications company is going to sell the iPhone later this year.

The organisation's decision to market the smartphone will effectively end the domination of the market accredited to 02, which has owned the sole rights to the computing giant's much-loved phone since its introduction two years ago.

Orange, which will become the country's largest network provider of mobile phone communications in the UK once it completes its planned merger with German-owned T-Mobile, will also be stocking the iPhone 3GS as opposed to the regular 3G.

The formal agreement between Apple and O2 is set to end on Friday October 9th.

Today, it was revealed that the iPhone is now the UK's most desirable brand, coming top of a list by SuperBrands and knocking Aston Martin off the top spot for the first time in four years, with the car company coming in second, Apple as an organisation hitting third and Apple's iPod coming fourth.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent).