Some 200 senior SA government executives will participate in the trial as the state develops a business case for the viability of mobile applications.

SA government Chief Information Officer (CIO) Grantly Mailes told Computerworld Australia a business case will be developed over the next 12 to 18 months as handsets become more functional and cheaper.

"The position we find ourselves in is that there is a lot of general interest in mobile computing and a lot of departments doing their own thing, so it's crept in a little bit already," Mailes said, adding the government ICT (information and communication technology) services unit has already done a number of projects and has good integration between the devices and Exchange e-mail backend.

The pilot will be managed by the government CIO's office and the Department of Administrative and Information Services, headed by state Chief Technology Officer Mike Grillo.

"We're attempting to ease up on the number of these things in the wild [to] reduce diversity and cost, and we will also look at productivity and other benefits," Mailes said.