The world changes… mostly due to new technologies proposing or enabling new ways of doing things, new visions of the world! And that’s the way to look at Tablets which are now standing in between Smartphones and Laptops but will soon stand, in our opinion, above both!
And today, where are Tablets standing in the enterprise?
According to Forrester, at the moment, 12% of Tablets are Business and predicting that it’ll rise up to 20% by 2017. Personnally, I find this later prediction very conservative because it turns out to be only a constant 2% increase per year over 4 years. Usually, technology adoption follows an exponentiel curve, rather than constant; is Forrester loosing it?
Nevertheless, it’ll sum up to 1 Billion Tablets sold by 2017.
Still according to a recent Forrester survey with Mobile Workforce and Telecoms; 52% are using iPad’s, 25% Android Tablets, 9% Kindle Fire Tablets, and 7% Windows Tablets (7 & Surface).
CXO Today predicts that entreprise Tablet penetration will happen in stride and that the cornerstone of that movement will be Top Executives. In 2011, already 38% of Top Executives were using Tablets in enterprise.
ITs will be under tremendous pressure from Sales Force, under the influence of Top Executives and craving for Tablets.
Consequently, ITs will be confronted with major decision making both in terms of Tablet OS and models when it’ll be time to replace obsolete equipements for the Sales Force and Mobile Workforce. And pressure will only keep on building up… even more so considering that the same Forrester study predicts that the number of Mobile Application Development Projects will surpass the number of Laptop Application Development Projects by a ratio of 4 / 1.
Tablet, tell me : what is your color?
From this to that, we shall not forget also another determining factor of influence in Tablets adoption; the pressure from BYOD, has greatly contributed to the iPad penetration in enterprise as of today.
Taking into account today’s market shares, Android Tablets will get the enterprise market over the next 3-5 years. Considering the level of its software penetration in enterprise, it’ll be Windows.
Other studies predict a yearly 50% increase of Tablets penetration in enterprise over the next 4-5 years with acquisitions approaching 100 million Tablets purchased by 2017.
And what about the consumer?
Tablets first deeply penetrated the consumer market, which is not surprising. And the consumer who must change his laptop soon is most certainly serioulsy evaluating the latest generation Tablets. With hardware equal to today’s laptops performances and which could take him/her on a very light mobile mood.
While the enterprise Tablets usage are Internet navigation, emailing and remote working; the consumer uses his Tablet for Internet navigation, emailing and Gaming.
Conclusion
One thing certain though, ITs should take the initiative now in defining the Tablets integration schedule in entreprise; OS, models, applications, sharing, confidentiality, security, communication, storage, maintenance, etc… because with its ease of usage, its performances comparable to laptops, its Mobility and its wide array of business applications, Tablets are here… to perform!
Good weekend,
Denis Paul and Michel
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