No tablets allowed: naive?
Jinfo Blog

By Nancy Davis Kho

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Forrester Research's Sarah Rotman Epps has released a raft of new research on tablet computing in the enterprise of late, building on a January 2011 survey of US consumers regarding their attitudes and usage habits with tablet computers. Of note is that fact that the Forrester survey's target –consumers – is playing heavily into Epps' predictions about how tablet manufacturers will have to strategise to reach the enterprise market.

But what could be more influential, given the survey findings Epps summarises in a blog post on AllThingsD that "37% of US information workers bring technology to the workplace that they use first at home," and that "34% of iPad owners reported using their device at work"? The blog post goes on to suggest that for RIM's new tablet computer, the PlayBook tablet, to compete successfully with the iPad, it needs to put as much thought into consumer-friendly aspects like availability of apps and native email support as it does into the arena at which RIM is preferred over Apple by many CIOs: security.

Epps and her blog post co-author Ted Schadler say "A typical statement we hear from executives at firms considering buying tablets is, 'We’d really like a tablet that integrates better with our back-end systems, but we’re going with iPads because we want employees to like them.' Businesses care about how workers feel about technology."

The whole migration of preferences from the consumer to the enterprise world as exemplified  in the habits of iPad users is food for thought not just for tablet manufacturers but also for content providers and information professionals. Your organisation may not support the use of iPads or other tablets for work-related information consumption – but does that really mean they're not in use?

When an employee can get at an answer faster or more efficiently on a self-bought iPad than on work-sanctioned tools, is it in the company's best interest to stop them? The line between "work information" and "personal information" and the tools that are used to manage both grows increasingly blurred.

Social media, interactivity, personalisation, and multi-device support: two years ago those were the hallmarks of consumer apps. But as the recent refresh of Factiva.com covered in LiveWire by Tim Buckley Owen highlights, the vendors who are building those directly into enterprise solutions, and the information professionals who are thinking now about how to adapt, are the ones who look particularly well suited to ride the coming tablet wave.

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