IDC estimates the mobile enterprise application market for software similar to Dexterra's tools will be $600 million this year, and should grow to about $1.4 billion by 2009. Dexterra competes with iAnywhere and Intellisync Corp. in San Jose, which was purchased in February by Nokia. Smaller players include Antenna Software Inc. in Jersey City, N.J. and Vaultus Mobile Technologies Inc. in Boston, Drake said.

Tennant's experience is instructive to other companies wrestling with field force deployments, said William Clark, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "A lot of companies try to do this themselves and they are wasting a lot of money," he said. "What these vendors are offering is pre-built components that can support different devices and different flavors of networks."

Clark said a study he did three years ago showed that a company could save 50 percent on average on the cost of deployment by relying on wireless gateways and applications from various vendors.