salesforce.com made a free version of their Mobile application available this week to Professional and Enterprise license users that haven’t got full Mobile licenses.  It’s simple to configure on the salesforce.com side but may need the usual Blackberry device installation hoops to be jumped through.  It’s also available on iPhone and Windows Mobile.  Find out more at http://www.salesforce.com/mobile/lite/

It allows read-only access to standard objects and users can create activities, and data access is controlled through mobile profiles as per the full version.  Basic access that you can, of course, upgrade for an additional license cost.  A few initial thoughts:

• we work on the basis that 50% of users that ask for Mobile access will actually use it, and only 50% of those users will be positive about using salesforce.com on a mobile device - resulting in 25% of users actually using and liking mobile access
• the access that Mobile Lite gives is probably enough to get users started, and allows the real reasons for mobile access to be understood and supported by the business
• it’s a shame that they had to limit it to standard objects - in our experience, custom objects account for around 50% of the information that clients use and manage.  However, Accounts and Contacts are always core for users

All in all, a good thing of course - it is free after all!  It may help increase adoption and usage, but only for those users that are probably already pro-technology and CRM in the first place.