Apple's iPad finds a place in the enterprise

IDG News Service - Apple's iPad is easily the IT product of the year -- it's reshaped the computing landscape for consumers and opened new opportunities for media companies hoping to get readers, viewers, and gamers to pay for their content. But will it have an equivalent impact on enterprise IT, beyond its current status of must-have gadget for the up-to-the-minute executive?

Based on interviews with early adopters and enterprises evaluating the tablet, the iPad is emerging as a tool for many enterprise users to access e-mail, calendar and corporate documents, helped by the quality of the screen, the long battery life, weight and ease-of-use.

Steve Shantz, CIO at Trans World Radio (TWR), was bitten by the iPad bug while observing a fellow visitor at a conference, and praises its battery life.

"Long battery life is a killer feature for me. I spend a lot of time on international flights and being able to work for 10 or 11 hours is a huge benefit," said Shantz.

For some users the size of the iPad is also a perfect fit: "Our users are anywhere but at their desks, for them laptops are too cumbersome and the screens on smartphones are too small," said Peter Larsson , CIO at Skistar, which operates ski resorts in Norway and Sweden.

One problem is that it can't be used at low temperatures, but that is a problem for all touchscreens, according to Larsson.

IT executives interviewed agree that the iPad isn't for everyone, but is very well suited for users that consume more content than they produce -- for example, e-mail and corporate documents.

Early on, Nasdaq OMX became involved in developing software for the iPad. The company was invited by Apple to develop an application for the launch. It developed an iPad version of QFolio, which allows users to follow the ups and downs of the stock market. After that, it was a natural step for Nasdaq OMX to take a look at how it could use the iPad internally, according to Carl-Magnus Hallberg, senior vice president in charge of Global IT Services Operations.

While testing the tablet, Hallberg came to the conclusion that the iPad, in addition to managing e-mail and reading documents, is perfect for taking down notes at meetings, and stopped using paper notepads. You can then use any of the available applications to boil down the notes to a to-do-list, which is what you usually want to do after a meeting, he said.

Hallberg isn't the only one who has seen how the iPad can help cut down on paper in the office. Karl Ageberg, CIO at Lund University, says that instead of printing hundreds of pages before every meeting, university board members can all look at the necessary documents on their iPad. Use it that way and you will soon have saved the cost of buying the iPad, he says.