RSSThe iPad for business
I had planned to avoid any mention of the iPad in here for some good long while (honest!) but speculation has started early over whether or not it's being pitched toward businesses. This is likely to affect CIOs in the same manner as iPhone adoption has, so it is, after all, a relevant topic here.
Prince McLean at AppleInsider has kicked this off with rumors of additional features, unmentioned at product launch, which might be oriented at enticing enterprise IT. This isn't necessarily a huge stretch; when tablet PCs were first introduced, IT departments were abuzz with the potential of computers that could be carried around like clipboards and use more conveniently in the course of normal business than ill-suited fixed desktops or clunky laptops. Alas, the tablet PC was still too clunky to fill the role envisioned everywhere from doctor's offices to factory floors, but the iPad, with it's speed, form factor, and intuitive interface, might not be. In fact, in many ways, the device seems better suited to business needs than consumer needs; see the consumer electronics press dither over the device's intended purposes for examples of how unclearly it fills needs in that space.
The company's inclusion of the iWork suite, puzzling in the consumer context, starts to make more sense from the business perspective.
My general take on Apple and their business ambitions remains the same as ever: if they really plan to compete for enterprise IT department hearts and minds, they are going about it the wrong way, and may well have a corporate culture which will long preclude them from going about it the right way, and have hit upon a neat strategy for not having to sell to enterprise IT department gearheads to achieve corporate penetration, anyway, so why would they bother? As McLean notes, 2 million iPhones have been sold to enterprise customers, but another 5 million are estimated to be in enterprise use, a stark commentary on just how unnecessary the support of enterprise IT has become for devices of this nature to gain traction.
For the CIO, this signals a need to get ahead of the curve on iPads, assessing their business uses before your users start bringing them in on their own. If you are driving the bus, you may get to keep some control over where it is headed. If you're the last one on, you'll be lucky to get a seat.
