"One of the things Verizon pushes is making work an activity and not a location," she says. "One of the best features we're pushing is the ability to set up a point-and-click application on BlackBerry devices to set up quick mobile conferencing."

If all this sounds like a headache for IT departments to deal with, that's because it is, Gaskin says. Rather than having one laptop or personal computer to manage from remote locations, the modern IT department has to juggle a wide assortment of PDAs and smartphones that all must be kept up to date with the latest security and business applications.

"If it was my company, I would not allow any wireless network access to the company VPN," he says. "If you're setting up someone to work at home, it's not too much to ask someone to work from their desk on a wireline network that you've set up for them."