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Apple's iPad represents a thin, 1.5-pound wrecking ball aimed at the division between netbooks and smart phones. But it may also do collateral damage to another long-crumbling barrier: the separation between work and play. And if that happens, IBM wants be ready to help tear down the wall.

Earlier this week at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) announced new business-focused apps for the iPhone operating system, including Lotus Connections tool for social networking inside companies and Lotus Quickr software for sharing documents. Those releases follow Big Blue's launch last month of a Lotus Notes app for the iPhone that includes e-mail and calendar tools, as well as an app known as Lotus Notes Traveler that allows encrypted e-mail.

While those programs are partly aimed at tapping into the small but growing number of iPhones in the enterprise, IBM's manager of Lotus software, Alistair Rennie, says they're also timed to give Big Blue a foothold on the iPad, which will use the same software platform.

"Our customers are looking at the iPad and they're excited about it," says Rennie. "No one quite knows its use patterns yet, but it's our intention to deliver as much of our portfolio as possible on it as fast as possible."

Rennie says IBM will also design applications targeted specifically at the iPad, which it hopes to release "very close to the delivery date" of the device. "The screen real estate and the touch interface should give us the opportunity to do some very interesting things," he says.

Apple's ( AAPL - news - people ) iPad seems squarely targeted at consumers, not BlackBerry-wielding suits. But Rennie says that the tablet, like the iPhone, will likely be used by executives who blend their home and work life and want to use their own personal gadgets to do work securely. "Peoples' lives don't segment neatly between work and home. The iPad gives people what will probably be a home device, but they're still going to want to access a full suite of business software on it," he says. "It'll be a device our customers will own, and they'll expect us to support it."

Apple's products represent one of the strongest forces in the so-called "consumerization of IT," the influx of gadgets into companies without regard for which technology is meant for use inside or outside the enterprise, says IDC analyst Stephen Drake. While IDC estimates that there are only about 4 million iPhones being used in an enterprise setting today, the firm expects that number to reach 9 million by 2013. IDC also predicts that the number of iPhones bought and maintained by companies will grow the most dramatically, quintupling over the next four years to total more then 3 million devices.

As IBM attempts to ride that wave of iPhones into the enterprise, adding software specifically for the iPad is a low-risk bet. "It makes a lot of sense for IBM to get its solutions onto the iPhone and into the mobile space," says Drake. "Given that the iPad uses the same software infrastructure, porting their software to that platform is relatively painless."

Unlike Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) and Google ( GOOG - news - people ), which compete with IBM in collaboration and messaging software, IBM doesn't have its own mobile operating system to promote. That platform-agnostic approach means that IBM may be freer to develop Apple-focused software than the two other warring tech giants. "Anything Microsoft does will be first focused on Windows mobile, and Google will push apps for Android," says Drake. "For IBM and others that aren't tied to a particular environment, this is a good opportunity for them."

At no time in American history has it been more important to keep tabs on changes in the tax code--and believe us, plenty are on the way.

Dealing with the impending deluge won't be fun, but better to be prepared and sulking than caught off guard and suddenly short of cash. Meanwhile, there are plenty of moves to make before the end of the year--and certainly by next April.

Assuming your business runs on a calendar year and you want to cut this year's tax bill, you have three basic options: collect less money from customers, increase expenses or both. To what degree you do any of these should depend on how much cash you need today--and what you think President-elect Obama and company have in store for the tax code down the road. (That second part matters a lot to entrepreneurs looking to pass on their fortunes to the next generation.)

In Pictures: 11 Tax Moves To Make Right Now

Have questions about running your small business better? Go to the Forbes.com Small Business Exchange and ask our cadre of experts.

If you keep your books on a cash basis, every penny you collect before Dec. 31 will be taxed in April; likewise, every penny you spend will reduce taxable income and shrink your tax bill in four months.

If you keep your books on an accrual basis--meaning that you match revenues and expenses regardless of the timing of cash flows--you have a bit more flexibility. With big changes to the tax code on the way, "clients are asking more questions about the timing of income than ever before," says Mark Nash, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Careful, iPhone users: Your smart phone may be smarter than you think.

On Thursday researchers at Finnish cybersecurity firm F-Secure said they have spotted the first known instance of iPhone "spyware" called Mobile Spy, a piece of commercial software that sells for $99 a year.

Mobile Spy developer Retina-X Studios says the software can invisibly track the call logs, text messages and even the GPS data of any iPhone it's installed on, allowing the eavesdropper to track the user's whereabouts on a Web site that hosts the stolen data.

"Mobile Spy will reveal the truth for any company or family," the company's site advertises. "You will finally learn the truth about [your family members' or employees'] call, mobile-Web and text-message activities by logging into your Mobile Spy account from any computer. The world's first iPhone spy software!"

Smart phone spyware for other platforms isn't new: Commercially available spyware for Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems have existed for years. But Mobile Spy's software is the first spyware vendor to target Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) growing marketshare in the telecom world.

While Mobile Spy currently targets only iPhone 3G users, another vendor known as Flexispy advertises a similar program that is compatible with both iPhone versions launching Dec. 21. Both programs require the user to "jailbreak" their targets' iPhone, a simple software hack that allows applications not approved by Apple to be installed.

Since before the iPhone's 2007 launch, cybersecurity researchers have been warning about the potential for malicious software that could secretly install itself to steal passwords or use the iPhone to send spam--just as cybercriminals have long been hijacking PCs (see "Hacking the iPhone"). While hackers have demonstrated those kinds of exploits in theory, "in the wild" threats have yet to appear. And cybercriminals aren't likely to use commercially available software like Mobile Spy and Flexispy to infect victims via the Internet.