Over 15 million iPads have been sold. I have seen many in action and my wife is about to get one. Perhaps I will get inspired also. This is not all. Competitive products from Google and others are out or on the horizon. People want to replace bulky binders with sleek tablets. That is my wife’s goal. Even more replace carrying laptops to events such as my friends Thierry Hubert and Luis Suarez. Tablets’ portability, convenience, connectedness and application portfolio make them very attractive. Now they are being used beyond the office in fields including construction, manufacturing, and retail as they offer more than smart phones in many ways.
This raises a new support requirement for enterprise IT departments, as well as business units. An enterprise tablet strategy is in order and that is the task addressed by Forrester’s Ted Schadler with his report, Tablets in the Enterprise in 2011. In most cases, tablets.serve as a third device for most employees who still need the productivity tools of a computer. In 2011, IT must work with other business units to determine what employees will use tablets for tasks and what they can do to help workers get the most from the investment in these devices.
The reports mentions that at the beginning of 2010, 56% of North American and European enterprises already supported personal mobile devices, and this will likely hold for tablets over the next three years. Many of the tablets are purchased by employees but for them to be aligned to work tasks, IT must plan on how best to set up work data and applications.
One issue is adapting thousands of business applications to run well on tablets and smart phones. Ted notes that desktop virtualization may be the answer. By running client applications on a server or an employee’s PC, you can make them available safely through a virtual desktop. He adds that tablets may be the killer motivator to embrace desktop virtualization.
There is more in the report that addresses an emerging issue of importance.
Hi - Woo-hoo! Enterprise implementation only took 123 years!
The first patent for an electronic tablet was granted in 1888.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/386815.pdf
-j
Posted by: John Maloney | June 02, 2011 at 06:48 AM