Roughly two months after the launch of the first iPad, we now know that Apple has sold about 2 million of the devices. That in and of itself is something noteworthy in the mobile industry, but this morning I’d like to dig a little deeper. My premise for this post is that tablets in general are going to experience rapid growth as a tool for businesses.
Turn the clock back to April 9th, and you’ll find that I made my first post about the Apple iPad and it’s potential usefulness for business. At that point in time the iPad was really the first of a kind device. So what’s happened since then that bears revisiting the topic only two months later? Well, since you asked:
- As a company we have since completed and delivered our first business app for the iPad.
- The App Store now boasts thousands of apps designed specifically for the iPad.
- HP has purchased Palm, and stated they will deliver a WebOS based tablet by October.
- Dell announced the Streak; a new Android based tablet shipping in the UK in June, and in the US later this summer.
All of these things point to the fact that tablets in general, and the iPad specifically, are gaining rapid traction in the market. But I saw another interesting statistic recently that shows the iPad, and I think other tablets, are going to catch fire in the business environment. Citrix recently conducted a survey that showed 84% of companies surveyed intend to support personal iPads purchased and used for work purposes by employees. The survey also said that 50% of businesses surveyed plan to purchase iPads for their employees. One caveat on this is the survey itself is not scientific, so it does need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If the only data I saw was this survey, I would not give it a lot of attention. However, what we are seeing in the market is backing this up. As I said, we just completed our first iPad app, which is for business use. I know a few other companies in the industry who are developing business apps for the platform as well. I also know several companies in a variety of businesses who are using them as sales and marketing tools already. Add to that the attention tablets are getting from HP, Dell, and others who have traditionally focused on the business market, and I can definitely see a rapidly growing movement toward the use of tablets for business apps.
Tablets aren’t new, so what’s fueling this. I for one think it has a lot to do with the form factor being married with a new user interface approach and new operating systems. These new tablets don’t run Windows. They run gesture based smartphone operating systems. The new hardware, combined with the new user interface and creative applications are going to make all the difference in the world to how rapidly this platform is expanded into the business market.
We are seeing real value in using these new tablets in the business world, and I’m betting you will begin seeing and experiencing it yourself over the next year to eighteen months.
I met with the owner of a restaurant last Thursday and had something completely unexpected happen. The gentleman I met with has been in the restaurant business for quite some time, starting out with 
Recently I decided to make it a point to schedule a few lunch appointments each month with various Small and Medium Business owners to talk about mobile technology. Some of them are people I know well, and some are folks I have just been introduced to. The approach is the same in all cases. We sit down for lunch and talk about their business, how they use mobile technology, how they locate technology, how they acquire it, and what additional mobile solutions they would like to get their hands on. These are business discussions, not technology discussions. 
I was at a local convenience store today and noticed a delivery man standing with the store manager, looking at a little black box, about half the size of a desktop keyboard. All of the sudden, two pieces of paper pop out of it, the manager signs it as if he was closing the tab at a restaurant.
First of all it’s important to remember that only two app stores actually exist. These are the iPhone App Store and the Android Marketplace. All the others you may have heard about like Ovi from Nokia, Skymarket from Microsoft, BlackBerry Apps Storefront, and the webOS Software Store from Palm are all just announcements right now. That’s right. You can buy any software you want from an app store as long as your smartphone is an iPhone or the G1 phone. That’s it. There are not any other choices right now today.