DG: Let's move on to the relationship between PwC and Palm. What can you tell us about that?

JM: We have been assisting Palm even at the time when it was part of 3Com. So PwC and 3Com have had a pretty long relationship of us providing services to them, especially around the IT area. We specifically assisted and managed the program office that delivered the IPO, the spinoff, of Palm from 3Com.

After that, we've continued as a preferred provider of services. Now, in that context, we had the opportunity to do very early work with Palm on some of the projects in their enterprise focus space. Because of that, we were able to learn together. Last June, we formed this strategic alliance that would take that relationship to a next level in which we not only would be providing services to Palm but would be working jointly to define solution sets and to have a tighter relationship.

DG: It's that strategic alliance that we'll be exploring in this interview. Do you have a similar relationship with other handheld vendors?

JM: Not as advanced and as focused as we have it with Palm. We do have relationships with not other only handheld, but also platform vendors. One of the conditions of the strategic alliance, for both sides, was that it couldn't be exclusive on either side.

DG: What makes Palm a great or interesting alliance partner?

JM: What's so different about this relationship with Palm is that they're still the market leader. Some of the research we did before we entered the strategic alliance is that two years from now--even though some of the other providers like Pocket PC, etc., will grow significantly--Palm will probably stay the market leader just because of the momentum and the huge lead they have over the competition.

The second reason why, that is again specific, is the value of the Palm brand is synonymous with the handheld device. People will still show you any other brand of handheld device and will tell you, "Hey, I have a Palm." That was interesting for us. Palm has a great brand equity and they're very well established.

The third one is that they were fairly early in the enterprise space, which is where we are very strong. So, we felt that we have a real opportunity to help them better define that market because they were earlier on the cycle than any of the others. It was a good match where they were coming from with our ability to deliver the enterprise service.

We can truly assist Palm in the enterprise and they do have a brand and they still, we believe, are going to keep a decent lead in the market.

DG: I'm going to switch gears a little bit because we have an interesting world we're dealing with. Do you think the events of September 11th have impacted the rollout of mobile and wireless solutions? And how do you think mobile solutions can help in this new world we're all finding ourselves to be in?