It's been a good program and a basis for the relationship between Palm and PwC because we truly were able to deliver a lot of value in a very short period of time.

DG: How can companies use Palm@Enterprise as a framework for creating a mobile-enabled enterprise?

JM: There's a lot of reusable material embedded in the Palm@Enterprise framework. It provides a framework as to what are the things that you have to think about ahead of time, before you embark on mobilizing your business. It provides a framework that allows companies to measure the success and manage that success and it's distilled to basically two factors: the adoption rate and the total cost of ownership. And it provides a reference architecture.

Palm@Enterprise gives you all the shells and pretty much all the thinking that you need to go through to create one of these enterprise applications of mobile technology from the foundation to the application in a structure that has already been implemented. We don't try to impose what technology will enable that framework.

DG: In any IT project, there are issues of adoption and acceptance. How does Palm@Enterprise address these issues?

JM: There are two variables you always have to balance in these projects. Adoption at any cost is not reasonable. I mean, you can achieve great adoption but if you have to spend a fortune on it, that's not going to generate the value that an enterprise should have. So that avenue is not good. But, when you get the cost so reduced that adoption is going to be hurt, that also hurts the end value. So even if you end up with a very inexpensive solution, if the adoption is not there, you're not going to generate any value.

Managing these two levers (adoption and cost) is kind of the critical success factor. Now, how do you do that? With Palm@Enterprise we identified that where Palm is most attractive the functions would be those that provide both value to the individual and also value to the enterprise. So the challenge there was how to allow an individual to receive value and to do the things that he or she wants with his or her handheld, and at the same time and in the same handheld, accommodate the enterprise functions that will generate value to the enterprise.

Second, the provisioning process has to be extremely simplified In some of our pilots, we learned that we can lose about half of the users if your provisioning process is not well thought out. So, you should spend extra time on a provisioning process that is self-serve and is seamless for the user, which will directly contribute to the adoption rate.

Third is the simplicity of the interface. If you have to train people, you're thinking on a PC mentality; you're not thinking on a handheld or a phone mentality. I don't know how many people actually read the manual of a cell phone. So if you think on that perspective you have to have that mentality. You have to have the mentality of the appliance, that people will not read the manuals. Simplicity becomes a very important factor in the adoption.