InterAct and Primerica strictly control some devices but are flexible on others. InterAct, for example, relies heavily on text messaging to communicate to its field and sales forces, so all employee-provided phones must support text messaging. While most employees choose to take the company-paid cell phone (some even port their personal number to it), some bring in their own phone because they belong to family plans, notes CIO Wroten. But when it comes to devices that can access e-mail and other corporate data, InterAct supports only the BlackBerry devices it provisions.

Primerica gives its thousands of independent contractors a list of approved handhelds they can buy, but it provisions the BlackBerrys and Treos used by employees, since employees have access to corporate data that the contractors do not, says Tom Swift, the bank’s executive vice president of field technology.

No matter how tightly the enterprise chooses to manage handheld provisioning, the consumer nature of the devices—which are typically sold through the cellular carriers—means that there can be multiple versions of devices to manage. Fortunately, the makers of the two most popular types of connected handhelds—the BlackBerry and the Treo—have reduced the version churn in recent years and have kept the interface and management functions consistent across models, says Greg Nelson, senior consultant in the IT group at Russell Investment Group, a brokerage and financial services provider. That wasn’t the case just a few years ago.

A final management concern: You must manage the number of cellular providers. While many companies can standardize on one if their usage is within a region where one carrier has good coverage, firms with national or international presence often need multiple carriers.

Giving a choice of cellular carriers, while often necessary for coverage reasons, can lead to device envy: Carriers often get short-term exclusive distribution deals for new devices, so users of one carrier may not be able to get the same sexy device their colleagues using the other carrier can. Also, devices typically can’t be replaced without a penalty for two years, so some users get itchy when the new devices arrive.

"These are challenges for us, so we explain that it could cost $600 to terminate a plan so they can upgrade," notes Greg Inginio, the senior vice president of IT operations at IndyMac Bank.

Get in Front

Whatever variation works for your enterprise, "the key is having strong policies up front. Control what they do," says Farmers & Merchants Bank’s Graham. But don’t forget the carrot. "Encourage the use of [company] smart phones and PDAs, so employees don’t carry their own," he says.