Originally Posted by Anuj Sharma
In the past, I used my tablet for simple web surfing and my trusty ThinkPad laptop for getting serious work done. But since I got a hold of Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Tablet 2, it’s changed the way I look at—and use—my devices. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that my PC is now <600 grams and has 10 hours of battery life. I’ve been using it extensively and I thought I’d share a few cool things you can do with the ThinkPad Tablet 2. Read more
The sheer impossibility of stopping the use of personally owned smartphones and tablets in business settings has led management and IT professionals to the rational conclusion that implementing a plan for application and data segregation is essential. To do that, there are a number of solutions that make sense and can help provide some solution to the problem. Current Analysis (PDF) has a more detailed study that is useful as well. Read more
It seems like whenever the subject is the business use of tablets, the sentence immediately following is focused on the issue of security. It appears to have gotten to the point where there is more emotion that surrounds the issue than there is factual consideration. This is actually quite understandable as tablets are far too frequently lost, stolen, or misplaced, and with up to 128 GB of storage on these devices, we could be talking about a lot of data. That of course doesn’t consider the issue of who might now have access to your systems on a lost device.
So if we remove some of the emotionality, and step back, what are the basic and fundamental steps that we should implement so that tablet use in the office becomes far less scary? Well I have a few. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but some of the basics I think every device should have. Read more
As organizations start to take the first steps in providing their employees with tablets for commercial applications and use, a key decision point becomes “what is the optimal screen size?” With three categories of screen size (7”, 10-11”, and 13”) now common in the market, there are options. And the choices all have different benefits and tend to lend themselves to certain usage patterns or types of applications. Combining the user type, the applications, usage patterns, and technical features is essential to making good decisions.
Before we get too far into this discussion, it’s important to understand that in nearly every case, standardizing on a single form factor will probably not be the right way to go. It may be possible to standardize on one size during the first roll-outs, but once tablet use is wide-spread, it’s very important that size options are presented to the end user community. Trying to shoehorn all users into a single form factor will provide short-term savings in support and acquisition, but it will breed long-term discontent.
For commercial use, there are some key aspects of the size decision that need to be considered that are different from the consumer approach. This is primarily due to the applications that are going to be used. Read more
There are so many similarities between the early days of the PC (1978-1982) and this era in the nascent market for tablets. In both cases, the vast majority of purchases in these early days were made by consumers, even if the device was being brought into work. After all, there were no budgets for these new devices, and IT didn’t have any way to manage or deal with them. However, once they started showing up in larger numbers, this approach was no longer valid, and organizations moved to buy and manage them.
It took the PC 4 years to get to this point, but less than half of that for the tablet. And for the commercial tablet, the time has come for organizations to get in front of the wave and start providing employees with tablets, and weaning them from their personal devices. Tout de suite! Read more
The use of tablets in business will skyrocket. And what makes this growth even more amazing is that we haven’t really seen the impact of tablets that are actually designed for commercial use! We have a bunch of consumer devices that have literally invaded the organization. Imagine what’s going to happen when we get tablets that are designed with commercial feature sets that actually appeal to managers and IT professionals.
One trend we have to consider prior to the device issues is who pays for them. The age of company provided tablets is dawning. This means that the focus on lowest possible price will be mitigated, and the focus will change to what is the right configuration and capabilities. Higher cost isn’t necessarily a problem. Yet, what many of us are interested in is how will the device’s features differ between the versions? There’s a lot to talk about on that front. And certainly many points of view as to what the “right” features are. Read more
When we start to talk about using tablets in an enterprise, one of the first things that must be understood is that the tablets we all know and love are not industrial-strength designs focused on the needs of a commercial organization. Rather, these are consumer-first products that have real limitations when it comes to using them for business. And this isn’t just a hardware discussion, although there are some key hardware differences.
The first large difference that has to be addressed is the operating system. And the operating system is dramatically impacted depending on what the tablet is used for. Consumer tablets are for browsing, running little apps, games, and generally “light-weight” work. Read more
