Tablets, Mobile Applications and the Enterprise

I have been reading several articles lately that talk about how popular tablets are predicted to become in the enterprise market.  Here is an excerpt from one article that I read this morning:

More than one in five Americans will own a tablet by 2014, and 37 percent of them will own them for business use, according to a recent survey.

Current business use of tablets:

• Business correspondence (58%)
• Online meetings/Web conferences (37%)
• Marketing (34%)
• Training (33%)
• Finance/accounting (32%)
• Sales (27%)
• Graphic design (27%)
• Inventory management (27%)
• Customer support (24%)

Another article stated, "Apple could sell 21 million units of its iPad tablet next year as half of the largest and most prominent companies in the world begin testing or deploying the iPad for corporate use, according to an analyst with Wall Street firm Piper Jaffray."


This is meaningful information to mobile applications companies.  Tablets often provide more screen space, battery life, storage and memory than a smartphone so they can be architected differently.

In a recent blog article written by Ben Lee of Smartsoft Mobile, he discussed the value of using tablets in retail environments.  Here is an excerpt, "Furniture boutiques, for example, can use iPads to demonstrate different products. Custom applications could be used to demonstrate new furniture."
 
Ben also shared insight into how restaurants could use tablets, "In a restaurant, customers could flip through meal options electronically and point to the most appetising option.  Caloric content as well as allergy alerts could also be incorporated directly into the application which is now an interactive menu. This interactive application could be a real market differentiator for a restaurant."

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.