Smartphones have become the first widespread corporate tool to free employees from the mother ship and let them download e-mail from the exchange server wherever they happened to be. Plenty of companies - small and big alike - would like to extend mob-e-mail to their staff, but the cost of investing in these high-end devices is simply too much, though. Thankfully, for them there are options.

That's because certain cell phones include the technology to received e-mail pushed from corporate servers, without the Windows Mobile or BlackBerry operating systems. Such phones include: LG Rumor, the Danger Sidekick series, and the Palm Centro, which runs the on the ancient but still relatively smart Palm OS and can be had for as little as $69.99 from AT&T - starting today.

Check out this article at Information Week for more details and suggestions. .