On his way into the office one morning, John Q. Infrastructure, CIO of Hypothetical Business Inc., had a Eureka! moment. Maybe it was prompted by the meter maid on the sidewalk, punching parking-ticket details into a handheld computer. It could've been the guy riding the bus who read the morning newspaper on his PDA. Or maybe it was the UPS driver pulling packages out of his truck, scanning a sticker on each box with a light pen connected to a tablet PC.

Whatever the source of his inspiration, John had solved a big problem. Hypothetical Business' CEO had been pressuring the IT department to cut costs, but at the same time, he wanted to see increased returns from existing investments. At one time, John figured that was pretty much impossible. But now he'd thought of a way.

Hypothetical Business spent huge amounts every year putting computers in the hands of its sales force. Big chunks of the IT budget went to providing dial-up Internet access to reps so they could access the company's customer-relationship management and sales applications from hotel rooms around the country. What if, John pondered, Hypothetical Business could make its enterprise applications available wirelessly to a PDA or cell phone? Salespeople would no longer need to dial into a toll-free number to connect, and they'd be able to access company databases from anywhere, instead of just places with an available phone line. That would make them better equipped to sell products and manage customers, and the company would get better returns from its existing software. What's more, even a top-of-the-line, Internet-capable wireless PDA is cheaper than a notebook computer, so he could save money replacing hardware.

John figured he was definitely on to something. But as any good IT manager knows, it's a long way from killer concept to successful implementation. Wireless access to enterprise applications sure sounded like a good idea, but how was he going to pull it off?

When you're in need of a mobile application, the first option is to do it yourself. Many businesses are deciding that since they know their own needs best, they might as well develop the necessary software internally. "You're going to see a lot more businesses looking at wireless handheld devices and developing applications to run on them," In-Stat analyst Ken Hyers says. In the past, a lot of businesses haven't seen a compelling need to develop mobile apps, but now that pressures to run a real-time business are growing, CIOs are looking at the apps as increasingly viable. "It's one more tool," he says. A recent Forrester Research study found that nearly half of the world's 3,500 largest companies are testing or planning mobile applications.

There are several tools available to help an enterprise go mobile. In October, Microsoft released a second beta edition of its .Net Compact Framework, which streamlines the way programmers develop applications for .Net, Microsoft's implementation of Web services. A final release of the toolkit is due later this year. According to Microsoft, the framework lets programmers write software once and have it work on desktops, servers, and mobile devices, essentially eliminating the need to do a special round of mobile application development.

Development tools that use competing Java-based technology are widely available from vendors such as BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems. Market-leading software from Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere, called m-Business Studio, is built on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition application server foundation and supports Web-services capabilities such as Simple Object Access Protocol, Web Services Definition Language, and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration. IAnywhere claims the software's support for Web services will let mobile apps access enterprise services across different types of hardware and clients.

Analysts say applications created by these toolkits indeed will make it easier for enterprises to mobilize, but that developers will still have to fine-tune the apps for different mobile devices. "Java works on any device, but it still has to be tweaked for each device," In-Stat's Hyers says.