Despite recent outages, and a court battle over patents that could impact BlackBerry technology, Research in Motion still rules the enterprise when it comes to smartphone purchases.

That's what a new survey from ChangeWave Research, a Rockville, Maryland-based firm, has found.

But that doesn't mean the Ontario-based vendor should rest easy.

Apple's iPhone is primed to zip into second place, bypassing longtime leaders Palm and Motorola within a few months, according to the firm's latest quarterly survey for the fourth quarter of 2007.

RIM is tops with 73 percent of corporate purchases for the second straight quarter, while Palm dropped one point to 18 percent and Motorola lost another two points to set a record low of 9 percent when it comes to enterprise purchase.

When it comes to future corporate buy-in, RIM is expected to gain another four points, but the biggest jump will likely be with Apple's iPhone which now has 5 percent of corporate users. That share is expected to jump at least six points by the end of this quarter, with ChangeWave predicting the vendor could grab second place behind RIM.

That's little surprise given the overwhelming popularity it's met on the consumer field.

The iPhone is one of the top three most-popular smartphones in play, and analysts expect the popularity factor will grow existentially once some minor tweaks and form-factor issues are dealt with.

This week could bring some news as Apple is announce new developments on Thursday, relating to the SDK, enterprise features and a software update.

The enterprise future doesn't look as bright for Moto, as the vendor, along with Palm and Samsung will see a drop in future purchases, according to ChangeWave. And while Moto's woes are nothing to sneeze at, Palm has experienced the greatest fall in terms of corporate embrace. Just one year ago the Treo maker held 28 percent corporate purchase share.

When it comes to customer satisfaction, Apple's beating everyone out as 59 percent of corporate users are "very satisfied" with the device. Just 47 percent of the BlackBerry user base gave RIM's device the same rating. Palm continues to trail in user adoration, with only 10 percent of Treo users reporting they are "very satisfied."