I'm in charge of IT for several companies. I've had people just drop their current BB or Treo to get the blackjack after they saw the commercial. Coolness of toys is important to a lot of execs. Business cards, cars, watches, cell phones, even laptops are all important in the one upsmanship of our current business culture. Hell, even BT headsets are part of their plumage. And if it isn't one upsmanship, you better be able to keep up with the joneses. Since they can charge this toy back to the company they could give a flying diddley about the ETF - it is essential to their job even if the upgrade wasn't so it is easy for them to say they had to have it.

And if anyone asks me what the best PDAphone is on the market, I'm certainly not going to say it is one available from Sprint or Verizon. I prefer the blackjack over the Q although they aren't significantly different I think the blackjack is better made. The Kaiser from HTC blows the doors off the 6800 from HTC. And if they want even better stuff, the Eten x800 looks great and the Imate's ultimates look great as well at this point. The only reason I give them for not leaving is the added expense of bulding up a new discount with AT&T. So if the IT execs are telling their clients the better phones are not from Verizon or Sprint, what do you think the suits are going to want for their phone - do you think they care about the initial additional monthly cost? What do you think they bookeepers or secretaries are going to do about their phones? Easier to pay one bill - we'll switch everyone to one carrier and get a bigger group discount!

Geeks or not, we have a significant impact on the purchasing patterns of a LOT of companies.

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