The services you'll have available at your fingertips will be similar to those offered for cell phones and PDAs, though service providers offer them under various names. For our consideration in this Buyer's Guide, a data-enabled cell phone had to provide at least text messaging or Web access.

From Shoe-Phone to SmartPhone

For all you techno-weenies (I include myself in this illustrious group) who want the power of a PDA and the functionality of a traditional cell phone, say hello to the smartphone. Early on we had devices like the Nokia Communicator 9100, but now a new generation of these hybrids is entering the market.

Recently, we've seen the release of smartphones that run some of the more popular PDA operating systems. The recently released Handspring Treo runs the Palm OS, providing the power of a PDA while supporting the traditional voice services to which we've become accustomed. Handspring is not the first to release a smartphone running the Palm OS, but it is the first to provide a mini-keyboard. If your company has invested time and money in providing support for one of the PDA operating systsems, smartphones may be an ideal solution with an easy migration path.

(Infra)Red, White & Blue(tooth)

We've all patiently waited as Bluetooth tried to find its place in the market. Well, it finally seems to have found its niche, in data-enabled cell phones. Mobile users need a common and reliable method for keeping in touch with the office, and they can do just that with a data-enabled cell phone that doubles as a wireless modem. With the ability to use your cellular phone as a modem, you no longer have to worry about having an Internet connection everywhere you go. Granted, data rates are limited, but with 2.5G and 3G networks on the horizon, increases in data rates are surely on the way (see "Generation Wireless," June 11, 2001). And it gets better: Many cell phone makers now support infrared communications and plan to support Bluetooth. The Ericsson T39 and T60c support Bluetooth, and the T39 also supports infrared. It's easy to imagine a future in which you won't need cables to use your cell phone as a modem.

The Layered Application Run-Time Environment Click here to enlarge

Reading and Writing Cell-Phone Style

Most cell phones include text-messaging capabilities; some even provide two-way text messaging. People can hunt you down no matter where you go -- and they can choose their weapon(s): phone, e-mail or both. Most devices are limited to receiving e-mail messages only a few hundred characters in length, but it's a start -- and things are bound to get better.

SMS (Short Message Service) is the future of two-way messaging, and it is available throughout most of Europe. Although simple messaging services let you send and receive e-mail and, in some cases, carry on conversations, SMS is a common system for sending messages to a cell-phone user.

The beauty of SMS is that it works even when you roam. Today, roaming robs you of many bells and whistles to which you're accustomed, but with SMS (regardless of the network you're on), all those features, such as voicemail notification and text messaging, will work. With the rollout of 2.5G and 3G networks, we hope to see a greater deployment of SMS in the United States.

The coolest part of all this two-way messaging is that you'll be able to respond to an e-mail message from the palm of your hand. Won't using the number pad be frustrating? Well, yes -- and no. Vendors have come up with a few solutions to that problem. While Handspring Treo provides the full keyboard, others let you connect an external keyboard.

Now you're thinking: What's the point of having a small cell phone if I have to carry around a keyboard double the size? Well, if the keyboard options don't appeal to you, Motorola offers the i90c, which lets you enter a partial word and automatically completes it for you. Fact is, not many people are looking to write long-winded e-mail messages while sitting in the airport or riding in a car, so the quicker and easier it is for you to type common words the better.

The true power of text messaging, however, is not that it lets you send e-mail but that you can send messages to users even if their phones are off or they're out of range. In these cases, the message will be queued until the user comes back into range or powers on.

Palm Perusing

Most of the browsers loaded on these data-enabled cell phones are embedded in a chip within the phone. The phones in our Interactive Buyer's Guide charts are capable of browsing WAP content, HTML content or both. While browsing on a small screen can be annoying, such devices can come in handy for checking weather reports, flight schedules or driving directions. But do yourself a favor and stick to sites optimized for mobile devices.

The true power behind Web browsing by phone is the ability to access corporate applications. Now your users can travel the world with their offices in their pockets. The increasing functionality of data-enabled cell phones and the delivery of 2.5G and 3G networks should let many organizations embark on mobility initiatives that will drive the development of new wireless enterprise applications.

It's Run Time

There's a lot of hype surrounding application run-time environments embedded in cell phones. The two most prominent are Qualcomm's BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) and Sun Microsystem's J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition; see "Comparing BREW to J2ME," at right). None of the vendors included in our Interactive Buyer's Guide charts claim to have BREW support, but we can speculate that once BREW is integrated into Qualcomm's chips, we'll see phones supporting it.

Comparing Brew to J2ME Click here to enlarge

The Motorola i90c has an embedded J2ME virtual machine. By providing a Java virtual machine, Motorola says it hopes people will come to grips with palm-sized computing power and will want more. After that, data-enabled cell phones will be on the fast track to usage in the enterprise. For now, though, the use of embedded application run-time environments is limited to small business applications and games -- but the possibilities are endless.

It's easy to consider devices that support application run-time environments competition for the smartphone, but while they can run applications, their power is limited. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Motorola's i90c provides a middle ground between the smartphone and the standard data-enabled cell phone. In most cases, providing a smartphone's computing power to an end user is unnecessary, but if your users need more power than a server-sided HTML or WAP application (available on a standard data-enabled cell phone), the i90c might be just the thing for them.

Other available features include address books, phone books and calendars. These are nice to have, but determine the phone's primary task and make that the highest priority on your list before making any purchasing decisions.