Will the iPad be a toy or tool? September 26th

By Andrew Till

Will the iPad be the Blackberry of Enterprise Apps or just an executive play thing?

While at a conference of global CIOs this week I had what I like to call a “blinding glimpse of the obvious”. While as expected every other person walking through the door was proudly showing of their shiny new iPads (well not so shiny as they were all lovingly carried in a case) once the conversation started it soon became obvious that iPads are having an unexpected impact. Despite all the concerns around enterprise security and lack of true multitasking the iPad is being widely embraced in corporate board rooms and the expectations about how they can be used are high. Time and again it was commented that application development was focused on the iPad due to demand from executives to be able to have access to traditional enterprise applications.

So this set me thinking. 10 years ago I used to hear all the time that executives were bring blackberries in to organisations and expecting the CIOs to “just support it”. While many said it would die due to lack of support from IT departments the opposite happened and RIM became the defacto owner of the mobile market.

So will the iPad force the enterprise mobile application agenda. Will corporate executives force a change in behaviour and the much anticipated wide spread adoption of enterprise mobility ? Will such applications filter down to a broader uptake of enterprise applications for smartphones in general ? Only time will tell but for now I am off to polish my shiny new toy.