They can work as hard as they want, Apple and ATT have an exclusivity agreement. The phone has made ATT so much money that they will never let Apple out of that.
I saw a guy at the airport this morning with his brand new Storm. He was cursing at it and saying "how do I send this message I just wrote".
Their out of box experience is NOTHING like any Apple product (yes I am an Apple biggot). If Apple developed a BES type service, I would move all my business to ATT and the iPhone platform regardless of penalties (and I bill way over $500/month with Verizon). The BlackBerry is far superior for business purposes, just the handset is aweful.