"Enterprises historically have not seen much of a need to spend $50 to manage a device that costs about the same amount of money," concedes Rhett Glauser, an Altiris spokesman, though he says the costs of data loss are starting to change that calculation.

But enterprises have another option: using the same BlackBerry or GoodLink mobile servers they already have to manage e-mail, since those servers can also track users, audit user activity, and manage firmware and software updates. The desktop management tools don’t offer the server functions, so they cannot replace the BlackBerry or GoodLink servers.

One related issue: The wider the variety of handhelds you must manage, the bigger the challenge. The mobile servers are typically designed for one class of handhelds, sometimes two. Different types of users prefer—and sometimes really need—different types of PDAs, so it’s easy to have, for example, executives standardize on the BlackBerry but salespeople standardize on the Treo.

If the BlackBerry is one of those platforms, IT will need to manage at least two mobile servers in parallel, which increases IT’s overhead. (GoodLink can manage both Palm and Windows devices.) Third-party management tools that can manage all three types of devices (Palm, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry), such as iAnywhere Solutions’ Afaria and Credant Technologies’ MobileGuardian, still need a separate mobile server.

While CIOs would prefer a single management platform, they say the extra overhead is manageable. "It’s not that much effort for IT to support the two systems for day-to-day support," says Bob Graham, senior vice president and CIO at Farmers & Merchants Bank.

Furthermore, it’s better to take on the extra cost of supporting an additional platform than to force all users to a single device that doesn’t serve their needs well, says Brendan O’Malley, CIO of cupcake maker Tastykake. "Still, we have two device [platforms], not 17," he notes.

Get Ahead of Your Users

While IT executives say you can’t allow a free-for-all of devices into the enterprise, you can choose among different strategies to manage the choice and acquisition of the connected handhelds.

At Liquidation World, for example, "only company-owned equipment is allowed on the network. That gives us control," says IS Director Chad Richardson. At InterAct Public Safety, the fact that IT manages e-mail and network access through a mobile server tied into a specific type of device gives the enterprise a simple way to manage the devices people use, says Wroten. End users can’t simply buy their own device and ignore IT, since devices have to be registered with the mobile server to get any network access. Farmers & Merchants Bank, IndyMac Bank and Tastykake take the same approach.