Wireless is already on CIO's radar screens, Quigley says. Theyunderstand horizontal applications such as e-mail and Web access. Butmost have not yet grappled with how to apply the technology to theirown operations. They need to do that.

There are significant obstacles, though. The cost of equipping a salesforce of 200 with Pocket PCs or Palms, developing an application,implementing servers and managing a network "is not going to beinsubstantial," Quigley points out. And as Gartner's Fabbi notes,managing wireless devices, many of which have already come into thecompany through the back door because employees bought them to managepersonal information, could become "an incredible nightmare".

"CIOs have a hard enough time managing what's inside their four walls,"Fox notes.

Wirelessly extending the enterprise LAN, allowing employees to stayconnected while they work in the conference room or the foyer, alsomakes increasingly good sense, our commentators say, despite welldocumented but manageable security issues.

Angus points out that the emergence of the multi-service IP networkwill enable another useful wireless service: low-cost wirelesstelephony within the office. If you already have an IP voice systemand an 802.11 wireless LAN, there are vendors with standards-basedwireless phones that will work seamlessly with the phone system overthe wireless network.