Treat them that way and get your important messages, such as the importance of security, across more quickly. If you figure out beforehand what kinds of corporate information can be used and how to do it without compromising security, you prevent a lot of misunderstandings and bad feelings over time. You also may run into trouble if you try to enforce a tougher security standard for PDAs than you do for laptops. Whatever you do, make sure that your senior executives will back your decisions. Having policy that cannot be enforced is almost as bad as having no policy at all.
Training can be a nonissue due to the simplicity of many devices.
Again, your goal here is to help your employees be more productive, using the opportunity to emphasize topics such as backups and security. Because threats such as rogue applets and viruses haven't had the time to develop the way they have in the PC universe, people may believe the threats don't exist at all. You must remind new users of that fact. With employee-owned devices, questions of data ownership and company liability arise from the outset. Employees incur a certain risk by using their own tools, but employers should nonetheless spell out appropriate limitations and understandings.