iPad, THE computer for the C-level executive or manager

Whether you are a high level executive or a mid level manager, you probably spend a lot of time at meetings or moving around inside the office.  Most people do. There is that status update you need to get from Davis and that other bit of information that you need to get from Marge, who manages another team…

There are staff meetings, board meetings… and when the company is spread out across several buildings or even just across several floors on the same building, carrying a notebook around all the time is a lot hassle.  Generally, notebooks weigh around 2 to 3 kilograms and or they’ve shrunk to netbook size for something which is a bit over 1 kilogram with a substantial performance hit.  That performance hit is mostly okay when you’re just browsing the Internet or replying an email, but when it takes you several minutes just to get your netbook up and running, it can be a pain.

There is no sense in pretending that this situation doesn’t happen with netbooks.  If they are running Windows it certainly will, just as with any other Windows computer.  As anti-virus software, instant messaging, drivers, and all kinds of crappy little things attach them selves to your system tray, boot and wake times continuously increase.

Look at the happy fellow in the picture… Do you think he is really that happy to be holding that heavy notebook with one hand?

Behold, now enters the iPad.  Just for the sake comparison let us consider it a bit iPod Touch as many critics do.  Have you ever unlocked an iPhone or iPod touch?  Did it take more than one second?  Did it get slower over time?  It doesn’t.  In my case, my iPod Touch takes as much time to unlock today with five pages of application icons as it did when I took it out of the packaging.

So… you have a device which weighs 680 grams, about half of what a good 10 inch netbook does, which is instantly on and which through either Wi-Fi, or a 3G connection can give you access to your inbox wherever you are, all day long.

Let’s face it, most executives and managers spend most of their day going over information available from corporate systems, which mostly have a web interface, these days and writing and replying to email messages.   Both of these activities can be taken care readily through an iPad, with minimal fuss.  What is still to be seen is how the iPad will handle corporate documents which mostly tend to be in Microsoft Office formats.  This is an area where Google might be coming in handy for Apple, as many companies have been choosing to move to GoogleApps and leave the local Microsoft Office applications.

On another point, in the mid-1990′s I remember seeing many companies making a concerted effort to move TO an all Microsoft application suite, coming from a past of multiple vendor applications.  Depending on just how much an iPad does appeal to a company’s upper management we might just start to see some companies making the effort to move AWAY from that all Microsoft Office position.  Remember how the iPhone wasn’t really dear to IT departments, but executives would get them anyway?

I believe that we are soon going to be seeing a lot of that happening again.  What do you think?

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