iPad in the workplace – more screens, more productivity

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

As you saw, our Mobile Workforce Report came out yesterday and it generated a lot of the buzz from articles such as GigaOM’s “Connected Workers Going iPad for Productivity,” InfoWorlds “iPads Are About to Pour Into Your Business” and InfoTECH’s “iPads Becoming Increasingly Popular in the Corporate World.”

On Monday’s post, I discussed the proliferation of screens that you are using, business and personal.  These devices add up, in more ways than one. The buzz yesterday was about the addition of another device for worker connectivity and productivity. In digging into our survey data, I saw that:

An iPad is an “add-on” device. For those users that have an iPad, they are more likely to have a laptop AND smartphone/cellphone (one or the other).

Employees that pay their own bills are more likely to have or plan to buy an iPad. Perhaps they are more familiar with mobility costs and will justify the expense.

92 percent plan on using the iPad for some work, with 41 percent using it equally for work and personal.

As you add more devices, do you add more screen time? For most users, the answer is yes. If it’s the iPad or other tablet that you’ve added, then you have an overlapping, but not replacement, device. But remember, you have to pay for that bandwidth access and use.

With multiple devices, are you paying too much for bandwidth? But now multiply this complexity across an organization. As an IT Director, are you missing out on the ability to lock in lower contract prices for volume use? And can you easily determine how much you are actually paying for connectivity to all of these separate devices? What part of your costs can be considered personal use, and what should be billed back to the company? Does your company pay for all of the user’s connectivity, or do they pay out of pocket?

No doubt, it is an administrative nightmare for users and businesses alike to add up all of these separate costs and keep track of multiple, over-priced contracts. Clearly, the number of screens per user is increasing. And the likelihood of one device solving the needs of every user and application is nil. IT will need to accept and “embrace” this chaos and look for strategies that can control, automate, and make connecting more efficient and safe, leaving themselves more time for strategic projects.

Tags: Android, enterprise mobility, iPad, iPhone, mobile workforce