“You might think of the iPad as an entertainment device, but this tablet has some real potential as a business tool,” Cisco Cheng reports for PC Magazine. “I don’t carry around a laptop with me all the time, so I often defer to my iPhone to read my Outlook e-mail, check calendar information, and take notes in a business meeting. Though I don’t think the iPad will replace a business laptop any time soon, it’s a business tool that I can picture myself carrying when I head off to a remote meeting.”
“Aside from checking and composing e-mail, Apple also offers an edition of its iWorks [sic] software for the iPad, which bundles versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. And if business users plan on using Keynote for presentations, Apple is selling a $29 VGA adaptor that can connect the iPad to a conference room display (as long as the display has VGA),” Cheng reports. “Dataviz has also announced an iPad version of its Documents To Go software, bringing editing and formatting functionalities to Microsoft Office apps such as Word and Excel.”
Cheng reports, “Using the iPad as a phone is not out of the question either, since it does have an audio jack and support for Bluetooth headsets. An app like Line2 will let you create a separate line and voicemail for your business… Traditional VoIP apps like Skype [are] available for the iPad as well, so there’s more than one option for turning your iPad into a phone (the iPad has a built-in mic you can use in conjunction with headphones or a Bluetooth headset for making VoIP calls).”
Full article here.