As companies begin viewing personal digital assistants as important systems for running business applications, and not merely accessories for maintaining contact names and schedules, they're tapping IS resources to inventory, safeguard, and update these devices. In turn, IT executives are exploring recent enhancements to systems-management products from Computer Associates and Tivoli Systems Inc., as well as new products from handheld software and hardware vendors, to assist them with this task.

The Roads Corp., the Australian agency responsible for maintaining and improving the roads, bridges, and culverts within Victoria, has extended its use of Tivoli's systems-management software to avoid the headaches that could otherwise accompany its aggressive rollout of Palm III handhelds. The agency, known as VicRoads, was a pilot site for Tivoli's recently introduced Device Manager for the Palm Inc. computing platform. It's using the Palm IIIs to let maintenance staff record data about completed roadwork, says Steven Archibald, team leader for desktop infrastructure at VicRoads.

Information about the nature, location, duration, and quantity of work, and the resources used to complete it, is entered each day into a custom-built app running on the Palm III devices by field staff. At the end of the day, the Palm IIIs are hot-synced to a central computer, where all the completed work is downloaded and analyzed, Archibald says.

In 1999, VicRoads had fewer than 50 Palms in place, and the organization's Metropolitan Works Group, which developed the road-maintenance software, was responsible for the care and upkeep of the devices. That changed when VicRoads upped the number of Palms on the job to almost a hundred and decided to participate in the Tivoli beta program, Archibald says.

"The Tivoli software was an opportunity to try and understand how these devices were being used in the workspace and try to gain a management discipline before they got out of hand," Archibald says. "We didn't want to experience the same uncontrolled growth that was experienced with desktop computers."

The new Tivoli software will provide VicRoads with the ability to keep track of how many handheld devices are being used and what their configurations are, as well as provide centralized support capabilities. It can also assist systems managers in deploying software to PDAs in a standard fashion.

Gaining an enterprisewide view of a company's computer setup--from server to PDA--saves time and money, industry executives say. Knowing what users already have can help businesses make decisions about what platform--usually Windows CE or the Palm OS--they should standardize on, if they haven't already. Having a standard in place can reduce both training and support costs. And, at a time when PDA viruses are expected to begin to appear, having an in-depth view of handheld resources should help IT executives more quickly prevent and respond to attacks. "The handhelds now have critical and important data on them, so security becomes a very big issue," says Laurie Wood, manager of global alliances at Palm.

To address PDAs, Tivoli developed a fourth layer for its three-tier systems-and network-management architecture, says Ross Haskell, product line manager at Tivoli. The newest tier lets the vendor's framework understand what handheld devices are attached and enables automatic maintenance configurations, software upgrades, inventory, and information synchronization with a server, he says.

There's little or no learning curve for existing Tivoli IT shops, because this tier functions similarly to Tivoli's other three layers, Haskell says. "We don't treat the Palm device any differently than any other IT resource," he says. "We don't require any changes to an existing infrastructure." Archibald at VicRoads says the organization's experience with Tivoli software made it relatively easy to ramp up with the product.

Aether Systems Inc. has long viewed mobile computing as an extension of enterprise applications, says Larry Roshfeld, senior VP of products. The company developed the ScoutWare series, which includes ScoutIT, a product that lets IT managers control, track, back up, and deliver software to Palm OS PDAs; and ScoutSync, which synchronizes handheld data with information in company databases and on the Web. Palm's HotSync and HotSync Server--which enables IT departments to centrally manage Palm OS PDAs (tracking usage, creating user profiles, backing up data, and so on) and ensures their handhelds hold the most up-to-date information and software applications--were both developed by Aether.

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