“While the iPad’s slick interface for watching videos, playing games and reading e-books makes it ideal for consumers, the device is increasingly being adopted by large corporations like JPMorgan and SA — as well as by small businesses,” Oran reports. “The enterprise trend even caught Apple CEO Steve Jobs by surprise, who said during a recent earnings call that the company hadn’t pushed the iPad into the corporate market, but ‘it’s being grabbed out of our hands.'”
Oran reports, “Almost half of the most popular paid iPad-only apps are business programs. And according to a recent survey of Citrix Systems customers, 62% said they plan to buy an iPad for work.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Our iCal is doing jumping jacks in our dock and sounding an alarm:
Attention Apple fan-boys and -girls: Read no further. But if you run a small business and want to avoid wasting money and brain cells on superfluous technology, forget about the iSlate or whatever Apple is going to call its tablet computing device. It’s going to be too expensive, it does things you don’t need to do, and it will add a messy layer of complication to your company’s computing infrastructure… A real laptop or netbook does real work that helps a business succeed… The iSlate fails that crucial test. Ignore the frenzy, save your money. – Bill Snyder, PC World, January 20, 2010
It’s interesting that as businesses go crazy for including iPad in their work flow, Apple has deployed souped-up iPod touches (not iPads) into their own retail business.
iPad in business is hotter than hot. Even Mac fans aren’t aware how hot iPad is in the workplace.
But wait, Ballmer says the iPad is just for play, and microsoft’s brand new vaporware is for business. Who are you going to believe? Him, or those lying enterprise users?
@ken1w,
Not true. My local Apple store use iPad for some things, like in-store scheduling and Genius Bar appointments. Some tasks do not need an iPad, like checking out and emailing receipts. In those cases it may be more economical to deploy iPods than taking up an iPad which could be sold to consumers.
Sadly, the California State government does not seem to be taking up any product from the shining poster commercial successes in its own backyard, but rather adopting the entire dinosaur stack from Redmonds, WA. Seems iPads are good enough for schools, hospitals, corporations, local governments, and Feds, but not state-size molasses.
@MDN:
Do you email those quotes back to the authors at all or post them in the comments on their columns? How funny would that be?
Get out of here! Wintards say that a $200 Windows 7 netbook can do far more than even the $800 iPad. Didn’t that winery just throw away all that money on what is affectionately known in the computing industry as a toy? Even RIM’s CEO said that no businesses will be using iPads after they see the RIM PlayBook in action. Besides, what consumer would buy a hand-held mobile device that doesn’t run Adobe Flash because they’d miss out on 99% of the internet.
Personally, I think these business-use iPad stories are being made up by Steve Jobs in his spare time as a supplement to his Reality Distortion Field.
I don’t think Bill Snyder EVER expected to have his words quoted back to him.
These sorts of things ought to cause a so-called ‘analyst’ or ‘journalist’ to be tossed out of the trade as being a troglodyte.
The real point here is that business has not only bought the iPad but has bought into the iPad platform by developing business apps for themselves and there customers. In many instances these business’s are not looking to market to the public in genereal but to other business’s that require their products. Architecture, Winery, Medicine and the list is getting ever more extensive.
Hence the comment that the iPad is being grabbed out of their hands by business.
@ acid
Well, an iPad can’t be used efficiently “as is” for retail checkout without a credit card reader and a bar code scanner, so it makes sense to use a much smaller iPod touch (with mods) as the device that Apple sales staff can have holstered on their hips when not being used, as opposed to a much larger iPad that would need to be held all the time. It’s not just “economical”; and iPod touch is BETTER for that specific repetitive purpose. Obviously, an iPad is better as a presentation tool. And ANY device in the store with a web browser (including Macs) can be used for “scheduling appointments,” and they do that all the time by walking over with the customer to the nearest open display Mac. Good idea to do the same with an iPad, as a way to “show it off” to the customer being helped…
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Apple already had an excellent hand-held device that is suitable for many business uses, a few years before iPad, especially for things like mobile data retrieval and input. It costs less per unit and can be put into pocket or strapped to arm or worn on hip, to get it out of the way when not needed. But no one really noticed, because an iPod touch was considered an entertainment device. I think this new recognition of iPad’s usefulness in business will have more businesses seeing iPod touch in the same light. Apple should take advantage.
@Figurative:
iPad is so hot right now.
I don’t mean to rub salt on the opened wound ……BUT…..
Mr. Softy had every intention to launch EXACTLY what iPad is and WILL be.
AND folks…. Mr. softy has FAILED MISERABLY. Talk about tech ENVY.
Does ANYBODY here remember Origami from MSFT?????
Apple’s iPad is EXACTLY what Microsoft wanted to do with Origami and FAILED miserably. No amount of $$$$$$$ can save MSFT from becoming irrelevant in the mobile space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Mobile_PC
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/desktop_mobile/origami_microsofts_orpod_alternative_to_the_ipod.html
I mean COME ON!!! OUCH.
How soon iPad NAYSAYERS forget.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
The pre-announce media frenzy for iPad was off the charts if folks will remember. The crazy thing was how many journalists wrote authoritatively Including mr Snyder what it would and wouldn’t have even though they had no idea. Awesome.
I have the “Revolutionary” iPad. It’s nice. Slow but nice. It’s an iPad. It’s not revolutionary. Leave the advertising to Apple. Or is that really who this site is?
MacDailyNews, your app, that I love dearly, is getting on my nerve! It’s getting very buggy lately!
Really a educative and informative post, the post is good in all regards,I am glad to read this post.
http://www.cellhub.com/christmas-day-deals.html
Christmas Gift Deals
Christmas Phone Gifts
As I have said before:
The iPad is that well placed blaster shot up the exhaust port of the M$ Death Star.
My school district is trying an “open laptop” policy for the first time, meaning students and staff can bring their own computers and log in to the network wirelessly after they register their machine. I tried registering my iPhone; the district’s MicroSoft-Novell-zombified I.T. wouldn’t let me. However, my principal has an iPad. They pretty much HAD TO let him register it. And last week, the Assistant Principals were all given iPads at a workshop. It is a gateway drug for us, for sure.
I love iCal.
iPad is the coolest thing since CAD for an architect’s productivity in the field. All my plans, codes, references, the internet, and e-mail with me all the time.
FaceTime on the iPad will take this to a whole new level. FaceTime may even eliminate the need to make some site visits, or supplement actual visits with many more virtual visits.