by Stefan Grünwedel, Senior Editor

(August 15, 2001) Gathering tech CEOs to talk objectively about technology is sort of like asking politicians to debate a deeply partisan issue. Even if they see the larger picture outside the confines of their business plans, you have to wonder to what extent they'll convey it openly to an audience of likeminded businesspeople.

At a recent meeting of the Churchill Club—a Silicon Valley forum for the entrepreneurial, technology, and business communities—several CEOs got the chance to discuss "Wireless in the Enterprise: Cut It or Keep It During Tough Times?" among their peers.

Inevitably, although there was agreement on several key issues, some interesting rivalries surfaced.

Panelists included Brian Bogosian, President and CEO of mobile access provider Visto, Rick Dalmazzi, President and CEO of secure mobile computing company Certicom, Mike Lazaridis, President and co-CEO of mobile device maker Research In Motion, and William R. ("Butch") Winters, CEO of wireless enterprise solution provider Neomar. Stewart Alsop, Fortune columnist and general partner of venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, acted as moderator.

Surprisingly, Carl Yankowski, CEO of Palm, was a no-show. His absence cost the Palm and PalmOS some points later when his chief rivals pontificated on Palm's future on their own. More about that later.

All-in-One or None for All?
Alsop asked the panelists whether they envisioned a convergence of devices (mainly PDAs and cell phones) into one handy unit or whether they thought devices for handling data and voice would remain mostly separate.

Visto's Bogosian didn't hesitate to reply that the PDA and cell phone would converge into one device. He held up his Kyocera PDA/cell phone hybrid as an example. However, he was alone in that assessment.

Certicom's Dalmazzi claimed that the current state of mobile power supplies would prevent such convergence. Long-lasting batteries are bulky and get hot, he said.

"I want a phone with maximum battery life that's as small as possible, and I want a rich environment [on a PDA] for applications," he added.

RIM's Lazaridis agreed there would be divergence for a while. When he asked Bogosian what the length of the battery life was on his Kyocera, Bogosian replied that he didn't know—his battery had run out!

Alsop interjected a choice opinion here: Kyocera's smart phone is a "piece of junk."

When Alsop polled the audience, about one-third favored a single "converged device," while half preferred "diverged devices." The remainder probably preferred legacy devices, Alsop figured, holding up a pencil. The result of that informal poll would seem to bear out other surveys.

Wireless' Penetration Inside the Enterprise
Alsop asked whether CIOs and CEOs have pushed new wireless initiatives down on their priority lists as the economy has slowed. In other words, is wireless access for employees worth the cost for corporations? How is it ranked among IT's top-five initiatives?

Winters said most Fortune 1000 companies think it's very important. But no one really answered where it's ranked, except as "somewhere in the top five" or, more exuberantly, "in the number-one spot!"

Here's why they're exuberant: consumers just haven't taken to wireless devices in large enough numbers to justify companies' investments in the technological infrastructure. As Alsop pointed out, initial excitement about wireless devices stemmed from lofty predictions that more than a billion cell phones would be in use in just a few years. People got excited, he said, about the notion of billions of anything, not to mention billions of devices connected wirelessly. But then the bubble burst and forecasts came down to around 400–500 million for the year (he was guessing), and now they're down to something like 250 million units for the year. That's a significant decline in expectations and, of course, in potential profits.

Bogosian was adamant that wireless initiatives must penetrate the enterprise deeply. He took issue with Lazaridis' bragging that "BlackBerry is the only solution out there," by noting "it's preposterous in 2001 that everyone has access to their voicemail but only 2–3 percent of Fortune 500 employees get [remote] access to their e-mail." RIM's 200,000 to 300,000 unit sales don't compare to Lotus Notes' and Microsoft Exchange's 150 million global users who are just the sort of folks that don't get access to their e-mail when they're not in the office.

To prove his point, Bogosian waved around his (now dead) Palm/Kyocera smart phone with a Visto client sitting on it: "General Electric wants to guarantee mobility to its 250,000 employees, providing access to the enterprise, not at the executive level but the enterprise in its totality. That's when mobility will take hold—when everybody can get access," he said.

"What's really going to make the various devices attractive to users is when the price points are attractive," Bogosian added.

Winters said he believed that the cost of wireless hardware was not an issue in enterprise adoption. He said a device's price tag only accounts for 10–15 percent of the total cost of ownership. The real cost is in support, administration, and operations, he said, not in the acquisition of new devices.

Next: The Industry Standard?