All Pawns vs No Pawns..who has the edge?

Hey guys!

As part of job interview, I had to do a presentation for them to evaluate my public speaking ability. I chose to do mine on chess. During it, one of my interviewers said something that made me curious. 

He claimed that it has been proven that if, when the game started, one side had no pawns and the other had all of their pawns, the superior mobility of the "no pawn" side gave it the edge in the match up.

So if it's not clear: 8 pawns/8 pieces vs 0 pawns/8 pieces (at the start of the game)

I had never heard this before. In fact, when he asked me which side I would rather play on, I chose the pawn side. Has anyone ever heard that before? Or does anyone have a link that compares the two?

Thanks a lot,

Bret

Yeah, I'd say the side with no pawns would be easy to develop and attack the side with pawns, whose pieces are in jail (made of its own pawns).

Wrong. 

"Pawns are the soul of chess."

That interviewer doesn't know what he is talking about.

Prove this to yourself.  Set up the following position with your favorite GUI and have your two strongest engines play the game from here:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

The side with the pawns has a HUGE advantage, and wins every single time.

Chessmaster (2979):

White with no pawns mated black in 36.

White with pawns mated black in 43.

Although I 'forced' all moves so the calculations wont be as deep as its' rating.