Attendees at Computerworld's Mobile & Wireless World conference in Orlando Tuesday heard some tales of surprise wireless benefits that companies didn't expect and that don't show up on the balance sheet.

Not all of them were as dramatic as that told by Aline Ward, CIO of a subsidiary of The Southern Co., a power company in Atlanta. She was relating Southern's experience in rolling out an automated resource management system (ARMS) used for functions such as service order dispatch and vehicle location. Key to the system are radios that field personnel use to stay in contact and feature an emergency button that broadcasts an alert.

Ward said that about five years ago, soon after the rollout started, a field worker was injured in an accident. "He actually fell out of his bucket truck," she said. "He happened to have his radio, and he hit the emergency button." Southern officials learned of the emergency broadcast and called for help. "Someone got there very quickly," Ward said.

She said emergency service officials told Southern that "it was very critical to his full recovery that we got there quickly." And because the company places utmost importance on worker safety, she said, "it sold the system a lot."

Another surprise benefit for Southern was the ability to recover a stolen truck.