This article first appeared on InfoWorld, and was written by Galen Gruman.
A new survey shows business use is a major reason that employees are getting iPads -- it's not just for videos and surfing
Corporate IT, consider yourself warned: You'll be dealing with the iPad in your enterprise, whether or not you want to. And it won't just be the iPad; tablets and slates of all sorts are on their way in as well, as Android, WebOS, and Windows Compact Embedded 7 devices begin shipping in 2011. That's one of the findings from a survey of 1,100 enterprise employees polled by mobile management vendor iPass in a report released today.
According to survey results, 16.3 percent of mobile employees already have an iPad or tablet PC device, and another 33.2 percent planned to purchase or receive one in the next six months. A surprising 59.8 percent of those planned to use it for significant amounts of work, while 30.8 percent said they would use it for mostly personal reasons but also for some work. (It's a good thing that the forthcoming iOS 4 for iPad offers corporate-level security capabilities that third-party management tools can tap into.) A surprisingly small percentage said the iPad would go toward personal use only.
[ Can an iPad be used as a PC in business today? InfoWorld's Galen Gruman found out in hands-on tests. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. ]
Here's the breakdown of intended iPad and tablet usage:
| All work | 4.0% |
| Mostly work, some personal | 15.1% |
| Equal work and personal | 40.3% |
| Mostly personal, some work | 31.2% |
| All personal | 9.4% |
Although Apple has never positioned the iPad as a work device, and it certainly has limits in business settings today, users seem to be noticing the business potential for themselves, as are some forward-thinking business and IT leaders. In my ongoing informal conversations with vendors and IT managers, I keep hearing about the fascination many have with using the iPad at work across a wide range of industries: financial services, retail, hospitals, and all manner of field forces.
A couple examples: Intercontinental Hotel Group is piloting the use of iPads by its concierges at some hotels, so they're not tethered to a computer to help guests find directions and book services. And the D7 Consulting construction firm has given its onsite managers iPads to access construction drawings and othert support materials in the field.
In the world of IT, there are a number of maintenance activities that need to be performed regularly in order to keep a network running smoothly. Much like changing the oil or rotating the tires on a car, system updates, backups, hard drive defragmentations and other processes are important for maintaining the overall health of a network or server. Many of these processes require system resources or even system down time, so a certain amount of planning and organization is required in order to minimize impact on end users or overall system performance. In addition, running too many of these tasks at the same time can cause these processes to slow down or even conflict with each other, further complicating the issues associated with system maintenance.
For these reasons, we have strived to maintain a proper schedule when it comes to system maintenance tasks. Most of these services happen during off hours when end users will be impacted least. In addition, they are set up to run at specific times in order to minimize conflicts, such as updates causing the system to reboot while a backup is in progress. It also allows for greater troubleshooting. For instance, if we know all system updates occur on a specific night, it makes it easier to assess whether or not those patches are related to a specific issue that a system may be having. This kind of organization not only allows us to provide better service, but is also essential to ensuring proper system health while minimizing system down time.
As computers progress and get cheaper, it is often easier and cheaper to replace a computer than it is to fix it. Some of our clients aren’t used to this approach. Many have been using computers since they cost $5,000 and are accustomed to maximizing the investment by getting as much use as possible out of the computer. Here are some of the reasons I give when I tell clients their money would be better spent replacing a problematic PC older than 3 years:
- Productivity. Almost everyone who gets a new computer talks about how much faster it is compared to the old one. For business owners, that means your employees can be more productive, and hopefully make you more money.
- Data protection. While it is always good to test your backup strategy, doing so by experiencing a failed hard drive is not what I would recommend. A 3+year old hard drive is in some cases a ticking time bomb. It is much easier to replace a computer before the hard drive dies.
- New programs and features. Often times, companies contact us when they have a new program they want to install that won’t run on the computers they are currently using. This means that if they want to run the new program, all computers need to be upgraded or usually replaced.
- Warranties. As a machine gets older, it is often more difficult to find replacement parts for some components. By being covered by a manufacturer’s warranty, we can typically receive all necessary parts next business day, free of charge.
- Budgets. When you drive a computer until the wheels fall off, it is difficult to predict what the expenses will be. Computers often die a slow death, requiring on-site visits to replace failed components and employee downtime. If a company decides to replace all computers every three or four years, it is easy to plan in advance, before yearly budgets are created, which machines will need to be replaced during that year.
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For those who know me, you know that I love technology. I am the one who has a new cell phone every six to nine months. My house has more computers than it does people. I am always reading blogs that tell me about new products that are coming out. I am often asked why I love technology so much (usually by my wife as I tell her about the new cell phone I have to buy) so I often wonder, is it simply because I want the newest gadget out there? I would like to think there is a better reason than that. I think the reason is simply I like solving problems. For me, I don’t want a new cell phone simply because it is new; I want a new cell phone in hopes that it will solve everything I hated about my old cell phone. And when that doesn’t work, I have to try again in six months or so.
This same problem solver mentality is seen as I design networks for clients. Usually we install a network and don’t have to change any equipment for three years. Recently, at one of our clients, we replaced a server that we installed about 18 months ago. It made me realize how far technology has come and how powerful it can be. When we installed their server 18 months ago, it was about a 16 hour job. It involved a technician going on-site after business hours, taking the entire network down, and migrating data to the new server. It also involved a technician being on-site the first two hours of business operations to finish the migration and update client computers. While we did an excellent job and it was seamless in the client’s eyes, it was a labor intensive job requiring a technician on-site for several overtime hours.
When it came time to replace the client’s second, aging server, we were able to dramatically change how the work was done using a technology we have been using heavily for the past year, VMware. VMware allows multiple servers to run virtually on a single piece of hardware. For this client, we replaced the 18 month old server and the much older server with a single new server running VMware. The previous server replacement took 16 hours with a technician on-site for most of that time, and it only involved replacing a single server. This time around, we were able to replace both servers with only two hours on-site, and three hours of remote labor. The best part is in three to five years when the client looks at replacing that piece of hardware, it will be a one hour job. That’s why I love technology.
