The iPad is about to steamroll into the Enterprise

http://ipadwatcher.com/2010/09/07/the-ipad-is-about-to-steamroll-into-the-enterprise/

by mlongo • 16 years ago

14 13 16 years ago

I don't know if it's gonna steamroll, but the senior mgmt at my enterprise workplace are twisting arms in the IT department to get iPads OK'd. The problem for IT is that we already have the infrastructure to support Blackberrys, so it would be a pain to also support iOS. Hopefully Rim will hurry up with their tablets.

illumin8• 16 years ago

It's more of a pain to support Blackberry. You need a dedicated server. With iOS you just turn on Activesync on your Exchange server, and give your users the DNS name and let them go to town.

megablast• 16 years ago

If Apple are serious about this, they are going to have to provide some better management tools for enterprise. Being able to manages devices remotely is incredibly important, and an easy way to install apps is necessary.

I sure hope Apple are reading this blog, http://speirs.org/, where the IT guy is using iPads throught a school in Scotland.

GiraffeNecktie2• 16 years ago

There's a lot more to it than that in a secure, locked down govt department.

aresant• 16 years ago

New canon printers come with a app to print directly from iPad and iPhone over wireless network which is truly like magic to use even though the underlying tech is so widespread at this point.

Edit - app is called iEpp on AppStore if u r interested

rmc00• 16 years ago

It's pretty exciting to see the iPad coming to the enterprise. I've heard that the company I work for released them to executives a few weeks ago, and it sounds like we're not alone. What's really exciting though is how the enterprise desktop space is on the edge of some big changes.

In the past, workers sat in one location and worked in a predictable pattern for a set amount of time. Workers weren't very comfortable with technology and needed major support. Moreover, work was pretty task-oriented -- it could be modeled with workflow very easily.

The environment of today is quite a contrast. The location and work hours of users are definitely not predictable. Furthermore, assistance and limited options from the IT department can get in the user's way sometimes. Also, knowledge workers spend a lot of time doing unstructured work -- analysis, brainstorming, design -- which is something that is hard to model.

Clearly, the old model for desktop has to change. I don't think we can throw a few departmental applications with a heap of productivity applications at people and call it a job well done. The iPad's introduction into the enterprise is a start that signifies different kinds of devices can be helpful. Desktop virtualization and the cloud probably have a role to play in all this too. For sure, I'll be interested to see how it all plays out.

josephcooney2• 16 years ago

I guess I'll believe it when I see it. "The enterprise" is a fairly amorphous term, but most enterprises I've worked in either didn't have a wireless network you could connect to (for security reasons) or made you go through a process with each device that would make a colo-rectal surgeon blush. Enterprise IT want to lock down and control things (usually un-necessarily IMO), and I don't think the iPad exposes enough knobs and dials for them to feel comfortable with it. The bottom line (once again, based on my experience) is that enterprise IT departments don't care about the productivity of the people they 'support' - I wrote this post about it a while back http://jcooney.net/post/2010/06/30/The-IT-Department-doesne2...

aaronblohowiak• 16 years ago

The iPad has support for enterprise wifi networks and works very well with Exchange. It is about as enterprise-friendly (without being MS) as you can get.

GBond2• 16 years ago

Yes, in fact the native iPad Cisco IPSec VPN has a much quicker sign-on time than OS X version of the client from Cisco.

josephcooney2• 16 years ago

Yeah, I know the iPad works with enterprise wifi networks, I'm just not sure the enterprise will be happy to 'OK' adding of it to the network because they can't fsck around with it to their satisfaction.

GBond2• 16 years ago

The same was said of the earlier iPhone. It was not Enterprise friendly enough (Gen 1 and 2). Apple slowly added IPSec, ActiveSync, & centralized profile deployments.

Enterprise now accounts for 40% of iPhones sales: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/atandt-40-percent-of-ipho...

Yes, most IT depts likes to control things but there is a certain point were they have to bow to the hand that feeds them ("the business" departments that pay their bills). The iPad would be easier to justify for these users as it is a new genre of productivity devices.

spoiledtechie• 16 years ago

The Enterprises I work with IE the Government, won't allow Apple in their product line at all. Why you ask, because they are a closed system. Android on the other side they will definitely use and have started to.

zmmmmm• 16 years ago

Absolutely - as a business owner I want the complete ability to customize things and deploy whatever apps on there that do whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't want nobody telling me what to do. And no, requiring 500 employees or using 90 day ad hoc deployment is not nearly satisfactory. Not to mention that your average enterprise has a bajillion lines of java code that, it just so happens (with the exception of UI, obviously), runs nearly without modification on Android.

One thing I am hoping for (and looking forward to) is a 2nd wave of Android devices which are dedicated special purpose tools. At some point cheap hardware that runs Android is going to become so pervasive that it will start showing up in everything from desk calculators to portable POS applications to medical devices. The attraction of being able to take the raw source code and specialize it for whatever task you have at hand while leveraging the huge Android ecosystem is amazing. This has yet to happen but I really hope it will.

The iPad is about to steamroll into the Enterprise

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