I don't take my laptop home anymore because I have instant access to whatever's happening in the company by using my Palm VII. So, from that perspective it didn't necessarily replace laptop completely. It certainly allows me not to be tethered to my desk during after hours as well as on weekends. It gives me more freedom of choice in terms of where and when I want to access my email.

DG: That's great. Are you guys using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)?

ML: Yes.

DG: IMAP makes a lot more sense because all the messages live on the server, rather than having to be stored on the handheld device.

ML: Let me just add one more thing. We talked in the beginning about the need to balance personal and enterprise goals and this becoming a key success factor for enterprise mobile solutions. One thing that we provided upfront to our internal customers in terms of this mobile portal is the ability for each of them to create their own personal channel.

So any URL, any site on the Web can be very easily transcribed into a personal channel and by doing that, we're really trying to marry personal needs of our employees with enterprise content and what we want them to know from the enterprise perspective.

DG: Makes a lot of sense. We've developed channels that are specifically handheld-oriented for both PalmPower and the Enterprise Edition just for that sort of use. How has all this technology benefited Palm?

ML: I know that a lot of employees really appreciate this instant access to corporate information as well as personal information. For me, as an IT professional, this is one of very few projects I ever worked on where users actually accept it without resistance. Everyone loves to reach out to his or her Palm, so to speak.

They're just fascinated by how much more you can do with those Palm computers. You know, really, I believe by creating this mobile portal and by combining this personal and enterprise information, we're on the cutting edge of what other companies will be doing within the next six to 12 months.

DG: That's great. Do you think that because people now have access to this information, for example nights and weekends that they're going to be winding up doing more work or does it save them from just having to make a trip to the office?

ML: I think it's a combination of both. Really, what we're saying is that we're not necessarily asking people to work harder or work more, we're giving them much more freedom and much more flexibility to decide when they're going to do this work.

Let me give you an example. Think about your day and think about how much idle time you have during the day. You get stuck at boring meetings and you get stuck at the airport (though probably not in the near future). You get stuck in doctor's offices and you're waiting. What you usually do is either read some trash magazines or you're basically stuck.

But this Palm device now allows you to actually utilize this idle time and receive your corporate email and answer those messages on the fly. So when you actually get to the office or when you actually get home you're done with your work.