Late last year, Joe Beery, chief information officer of US Airways Group Inc., began looking for a new wireless email device. While his company had deployed more than 300 BlackBerry gadgets to its top executives, Mr. Beery wanted to evaluate alternatives, particularly since BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. was embroiled in a nasty lawsuit that threatened to shut down its email service.

So Mr. Beery turned to Palm Inc.'s Treo smartphone, which combines a cellphone with wireless email capabilities and other applications such as word processing. Within a few weeks, Mr. Beery had given up his BlackBerry and switched over to the Palm device. And while he has no plans to eliminate the BlackBerry from US Airways, the CIO now counts the Treo as another option for the airline.

"I find the Treo is more usable than the BlackBerry," Mr. Beery says. "It's really the only other option we saw on the market."