Yet another important trend that was previously reported, Hall said, is the advent of lower-priced smartphones such as the US$200 Treo 680, recently announced by Palm. Until recently, smartphones were used primarily by those who didn't care how much they cost -- and the typical price tag for such devices was between $400 and $600.

"In the [traditional] road warrior category, people are a lot less concerned about what something costs and more concerned about productivity," Hall said. "We're talking about people who spend a couple of hundred dollars a month on cellular service. You never want to say price isn't important, but it's far less important to an executive who is traveling two weeks a month."

But low-priced smartphones will enable enterprises to provide a single device to non-executives who otherwise would have a cell phone and a PDA, Hall noted. That, in turn, will herald the end of the PDA as a significant product category and not just one for high-end road warriors, Hall agreed.

"If a company is spending the money to buy a PDA and a cell phone, a low-cost smartphone is a real good bargain," Hall said. That's particularly true as smartphones get better at all their disparate tasks.

Kerton again agreed.