Tablet Vs PC

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Tablet vs. PC Form-Factor Smackdown

In one corner: the iPad and rival tablets, like the new Google Nexus 7. In the other corner: laptops and ultrabooks. These device campsand the vendors behind themare fighting to be the dominant enterprise productivity tool. In some situations, tablets do work better than laptops. Somebut not all. IT teams need to tailor the device to the workload; heres how. By Kurt Marko
Report ID: S5280712
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Ta b l e t vs. P C Fo r m - Fa c t o r S m a c k d ow n
CONTENTS
3 4 5
TABLE OF
Authors Bio Executive Summary Apples Vision of Post-PC World vs. Enterprise Realities 5 Figure 1: View on Post-PC Age 6 Figure 2: Employee Device Use: 2012 vs. 2010 7 PCs and Tablets: Its Not Either/Or, Its Which/When 7 Figure 3: Supported Devices: 2012 vs. 2010 8 Tablet Strength Summary 8 Figure 4: Total Number of Devices Used 9 Figure 5: Scope of Tablet Deployment 10 Figure 6: Importance of Mobile OS Features 11 Figure 7: Supported Business Applications
12 PC Strength Summary 12 Figure 8: IT Policy on Apple Products 13 Figure 9: Reasons for Limiting Support of Apple Devices 14 Figure 10: Approach to Consumer-Centric Technology 15 Tablet Growth at Expense of PCs 16 Promising Tablet Use Cases 16 The Role Factor 16 Figure 11: Deployment Timeline: Tabets and Smartphones 17 Mobilizing Business Processes 17 Figure 12: Percentage of Tablets and Smartphones That Will Run on Windows 8 18 Policy Recommendations 20 Related Reports
ABOUT US
InformationWeek Reports analysts arm business technology decision-makers with real-world perspective based on qualitative and quantitative research, business and technology assessment and planning tools, and adoption best practices gleaned from experience. To contact us, write to managing director Art Wittmann at awittmann@techweb.com, content director Lorna Garey at lgarey@techweb.com, editor-at-large Andrew Conry-Murray at acmurray@techweb.com, and research managing editor Heather Vallis at hvallis@techweb.com. Find all of our reports at reports.informationweek.com.
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Kurt Marko InformationWeek Reports
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Kurt Marko is a technology writer and IT industry veteran, now focused on IT analysis and reporting after a varied career that has spanned virtually the entire high-tech food chain, from chips to systems. Upon graduating from Stanford University with a BS and MS in electrical engineering, Kurt spent several years as a semiconductor device physicist, doing process design, modeling and testing. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a memory chip designer and CAD and simulation developer. Moving to Hewlett-Packard, Kurt started in its laser printer R&D lab doing electrophotography research, for which he earned a patent, but his love of computers eventually led him to join HPs nascent technical IT group. He spent 15 years as an IT engineer and was a lead architect for several enterprise-wide infrastructure projects at HP, including its Windows domain infrastructure, remote access service, Exchange email infrastructure and managed Web services. For the past five years, Kurt has been a frequent contributor to several IT trade and consumer technology publications and industry conferences. He is now a regular contributor to InformationWeek and Network Computing.
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SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE
In two short years, tablets have gone from a consumer luxury, primarily used for watching video, reading e-books or playing games, to a burgeoning business platform: a slim, light mobile appliance with long battery life that can replace, and even outperform, PCs in many situations. While Apple initially pitched the category-defining iPad to consumers, its App Store is now replete with business-focused apps, a clear reflection of the companys new role in the enterprise. And CIOs have taken notice: After Apples second-quarter 2012 earnings release, CEO Tim Cook revealed that 94% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPads. The tablet form factors enterprise worthiness was further validated by Microsofts recent announcement of Windows 8 devices that are certain to be popular with big business. But enterprise tablet use is still immature, haphazard and driven by end users, not the result of planning, strategy and business need. Sure, an iPad makes a handy alternative to a bulky laptop for keeping up with email on the go, but its capabilities enable so much more. Well examine the state of tablets in the enterprise; their strengths and weaknesses relative to laptops; and the tasks, applications and job types best suited for replacing PCs with tablets. Well wrap up with some recommendations on how to incorporate tablets into your enterprise and capitalize on this most mobile of clients.
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Apples Vision of Post-PC World vs. Enterprise Realities

Tablets are hot. Apple singlehandedly turned a product category once cursed as a virtual Bermuda Triangle of failed strategies, DOA products and wasted marketing dollars into the fastest-selling new device in its history and perhaps all time. Successfully blending the speed, graphics and screen real estate of a PC with the portability, simplicity and battery life of a smartphone, the iPad reinvented the tablet market and set a standard all others, including, most recently, even Microsoft itself, struggle to mimic. Yet a device originally marketed for digital media, sort of an overgrown iPod Touch, designed for Web, music, video and e-book consumption, has quickly evolved into a versatile application platform fully capable of replacing a PC for tasks from email and calendar management to social collaboration and document editing. But just because a device can do a task doesnt mean it should. As my colleague Fritz Nelson points out in discussing Microsofts
new Surface tablet notes, Steve Ballmer once sarcastically said upon glancing at Fritz writing on his iPad with a keyboard accessory, If you work hard enough, you can make anything into a PC. For the last couple years of his life, Steve Jobs Figure 1
famously talked of a post-PC world ushered in by mobile devices like the iPhone, the iPad and their imitators. In contrasting todays information society with our agrarian roots, Jobs likened versatile PCs to a farmers trusty truck; utilitarian but ill suited to the demands for
View on Post-PC Age

Apple executives like to say that we're in the post-PC age, where organizations can no longer mandate that all company-supplied desktops and laptops be Windows devices. Do you agree?
Completely disagree; Apple products are overhyped
Completely agree; we support device diversity
10%
14%
Mostly disagree; Windows is still the best enterprise platform
37% 39%
Agree, but we still have restrictions in place
Data: InformationWeek 2012 iPad Survey of 402 business technology professionals, March 2012
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Figure 2
convenience, usability, simplicity and comfort of an urbanizing populace: PCs are going to be like trucks.Theyre still going to be around, theyre still going to have a lot of value, but theyre going to be used by one out of X peo-
ple. In this view, tablets are just a more specialized, practical and polished device, better suited for the way people work, communicate and amuse themselves these days. IT professionals are divided on the question.
Employee Device Use: 2012 vs. 2010

Which of the following devices are provided to more than 25% of your organizations information workers?
2012 2010
Base: 400 respondents in February 2012 and 417 in August 2010 Data: InformationWeek Consumerization of IT Survey of business technology professionals
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When asked their views on the post-PC age, 53% of respondents to the InformationWeek 2012 iPad Survey agreed that the days of mandating a Windows-only policy are over, yet a sizable 37% say Windows is still the best enterprise platform. Further complicating the tablet-vs.-PC conundrum is the pending release of Windows 8, which, as evidenced by Microsofts sexy, svelte Surface tablet, will feature hybrid products with built-in keyboards and touch screens that further blur the tabletlaptop boundary. Still, Microsoft has a tough marketing job ahead of it. Our most recent InformationWeek Windows 8 Survey found that most organizations have no plans to deploy Windows 8 tablets, with only 42% planning to deploy within first two years of release. Even here, adoption will be narrow. Of those upgrading to the new version, Windows 8 tablets and smartphones will comprise only 24% of their entire mobile device fleets by 2014. For some, tablets are the logical culmination of a long line of miniaturization, standardization and simplification: from Unix workstation
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82% 84%
BlackBerry-based smartphones
Terminal for thin client or VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)
62% 62% 43% 33%
Android-based smartphones
Windows-based smartphones
Tablets (not including iPads)
30% 27%
Cellphones
Desktops
Laptops
iPhones
Netbooks
Other smartphones
16%
16%
13% 12%
10% 9%
7% 3%
5%
6% 8%
6%
Pagers
iPads
4% 3%
4% 3%
4% 3%
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to desktop PC to laptop, ultimately to the iPad. Yet in most enterprises, tablets are still used only for specific tasks, typically communicating or consuming informationtheyre basiFigure 3
cally glorified email appliances and catalog replacements, and only for a select few. Our InformationWeek Consumerization of IT Survey finds the number of organizations providing
tablets to more than 25% of their employees remains in the single digits. PCs and Tablets: Its Not Either/Or, Its Which/When But even if tablets are a great 60%, or even 90%, solution, what about that other 10%? Perhaps the PC is a jack-of-all-trades, but when it comes to business, its still good enough to get the job done, right? Dan Kerzner, senior VP for mobile at MicroStrategy, says its a mistake to think in such allor-nothing terms. Kerzner notes that while there are definitely cases where tablets can replace PCs, its usually just for selected tasks, not an employees entire environment. He likens tablets entering the enterprise to microwave ovens in the kitchen: People found that the microwave was great for macaroni and cheese, but not for chicken. Kevin Spain, general partner at Emergence Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, agrees that tablets are transformational, but that they wont completely replace PCs. So the challenge for IT is to define a policy:
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Supported Devices: 2012 vs. 2010

Which types of company-supplied and/or user-provided devices are supported by your organization?
2012 2010
97% 98% 74% 74% 56%
51%
51%
44% 49%
48%
Windows-based desktops/laptops
41% 48%
42%
BlackBerry-based smartphones
Android-based smartphones
Windows-based smartphones
Linux-based desktops/laptops
Android- or Linux-based tablets
39%
35%
35% 30%
Mac desktops/laptops
Windows-based tablets
31%
Other smartphones
Linux-based phones
21%
22%
20%
iPhones
iPads
Other tablets
NA
Note: Percentages reflect those supporting or planning to support either company-provided or personal devices Base: 400 respondents in February 2012 and 417 in August 2010 Data: InformationWeek Consumerization of IT Survey of business technology professionals
NA
NA
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19% 13%
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Who, if anyone, gets a company-issued tablet? Which personally owned devices are allowed on the network, and is a mobile device management client required? What tasks and applications will IT support? Who pays for 3G/4G? If you dont yet have a formal bring-yourown-device policy, its past time to build one, especially given that the majority of enterprise tablet users are senior executives, according to our latest InformationWeek Mobile OS Vendor Evaluation Survey, which found that of those organizations using or evaluating mobile operating systems for tablets, 58% have deployed or plan to deploy tablets to executives. Although IT shouldnt protest too loudly, since its employees scored more tablets than sales reps, line-of-business leaders or road warriors. Kerzner says that tablets entering the workplace via the executive suite is understandable since the C level has the discretionary budget to easily float an iPad, and purchase justification is trivial since incremental productivity improvements at that level are clearly valuable: Save a six- or seven-figure exec a few minutes a day and it doesnt take long to pay
Figure 4
Total Number of Devices Used

How many different devices do you personally use between work and home? Please include all work equipment (laptops, desktops, cellphones, etc.) as well as personal devices.
1-0% 2 More than 5
11% 24%
3
27%
5
11%
27%
4
Data: InformationWeek 2012 Consumerization of IT Survey of 400 business technology professionals, February 2012
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for a tablet, even a high-end one. RBut back to a policy on tablet support: where, for what use and for whom. Base your plan on these five key strengths of each platform. Tablet Strength Summary 1. Size and power: Any road warrior who
has tossed an iPad into a compact man purse after schlepping around a laptop, power brick, various accessories and appropriately sized ballistic nylon laptop case instantly realizes the main beauty of tablets: portability. The new iPad is less than 0.4inches thick and weighs just under a pound
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and a half. Even the sveltest laptop, the 11inch MacBook Air, weighs a pound more and is 0.3-inches thicker at the hinge, while your typical corporate-issued 15-inch laptop tips the scales at between 5 and 6 pounds. And any Starbucks will reveal evidence of the sorry state of laptop battery life, with customers in for the long haul jockeying for seats near the power plug. The typical laptop is lucky to get five hours of Wi-Fi Web browsing off grid, and even a 13-inch MacBook Airthe state of the art for power-efficient portablesmaxes out at around seven. In comparison, the new iPad runs for a good 10 hours on Wi-Fi and nine on cellular (assuming you dont max out your data plan before then), easily enough time to make it through an entire workday without recharging. 2. Network support: Although Wi-Fi is prevalent, particularly in locales frequented by business travelers, its neither ubiquitous nor completely reliable, two attributes that justifiably apply to domestic 3G and LTE data networks. And while there are certainly options for connecting your typical business lap-
Figure 5
Scope of Tablet Deployment

To which employees are you deploying or planning to deploy tablets?
Executives
58%
IT
35%
Sales
29%
Line-of-business leaders
26%
Specific job types (e.g., patient caregivers, manufacturing, retail workers, etc.)
23%
Road warriors
19%
Other departments
10%
Most of the organization
8%
All employees
4%
Other
5%
Dont know
1%
Note: Multiple responses allowed Base: 522 respondents at organizations using or evaluating mobile operating systems for tablets Data: InformationWeek Mobile OS Vendor Evaluation Survey of 651 business technology professionals, May 2011
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top to 3GUSB adapters, smartphone tethering, 3G Wi-Fi hotspotsthey add complexity.
Of course, not all tablets come so equipped, but most models do offer wireless networkJuly 2012 9
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ing, typically superfast LTE. 3. Instant on, instant off: Owing to their smartphone legacy, tablets are perhaps the fullest embodiment yet of an information appliance. In particular, Apple has turned the inability to expand and customize its tablets into key strengths: simplicity, convenience and immediacy. Unlike even an SSD-equipped PC, which can still take 20 or 30 seconds just to reach the login screen (and that much more to load the entire desktop), an iPad fires up in about 10 secondsthats on the The typical laptop is lucky to get rare occasion you actufive hours of Wi-Fi Web browsing ally do restart the device; most of the time it off grid. resumes as soon as you flip up the smart cover. Emergences Spain says this longevity (battery life) and immediacy (instant on) are fueling new categories of enterprise apps for roaming workers, particularly salespeople, field service techs and physicians, that werent feasible on a PC. 4. Simple Interface: The uncluttered, swipeable tablet UIeach app with its own
Figure 6
Importance of Mobile OS Features

How important are the following features when evaluating mobile OS providers for smartphones and/or tablets? Please use a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is not important and 5 is very important.
1 Not important
Security (encryption, remote device lock and wipe, etc.)
Very important 5
4.5
Ease of use
4.4
Email support
4.4
Hardware performance
4.3
Web browser performance (browser speed, Flash support, etc.)
4.2
Mobile device management integration
4.1
Number of enterprise applications available
3.8
Enterprise middleware support
3.7
Internal application development environment
3.6
Hardware features (external ports, cameras, etc.)
3.5
Consumer-facing application development environment
3.3
Number of consumer applications available
3.3
Fun factor/user appeal
3.1
Note: Mean average ratings Data: InformationWeek Mobile OS Vendor Evaluation Survey of 651 business technology professionals, May 2011
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icon, no menu bars, no system trayis trivial to navigate even when distracted, as in trying to pay attention to a customer instead of your desktop. In contrast to PC applications, which, sagging under years of feature creep, are littered with options the average person seldom uses, good tablet apps are focused around a single task. Furthermore, many tasks are more efficiently accomplished with a touch-screen interface versus keyboard and mouse. Contrast the ease of digesting postings and articles on Flipboard or Zite or navigating Google Maps on the iPad with browser-based PC alternatives, like TweetDeck, Facebook, Google Reader and Google Maps. Even something as simple as reading and annotating PDFs is more convenient on a touch-screen, gesture-based tablet than in Preview or Acrobat on a PC. 5. Location and position awareness: Tablets have also leveraged their smartphone roots by incorporating various sensors that provide location and position awareness features unheard of on a PC. Tablets include location services, using either hotspot databases
Figure 7
Supported Business Applications

What business applications do you support or plan to support on the iPad?
Email
90%
Presentations
57%
Creating/editing office documents
42%
Accessing/viewing enterprise data
41%
Web-based custom internal applications
41%
Non-email collaboration applications
27%
Third-party enterprise applications (CRM, ERP reports, etc.)
24%
Native (iOS) custom internal applications
21%
Third-party vertical applications (point of sale, healthcare records, etc.)
15%
Other
5%
Note: Multiple responses allowed Base: 308 respondents at organizations supporting or re-evaluating support of iPads Data: InformationWeek 2012 iPad Survey of 402 business technology professionals, March 2012
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or, for models with a 3G/LTE chipset, GPS along with a gyroscope and accelerometers providing orientation data. This information enables innovative applications not possible on a PC, with features like localized search results (look for a gas station and Google shows the ones nearby), automatic location check-in on social networks like Facebook or Yelp, and gesturebased navigation through 3-D environments (see TourWrist, for example). PC Strength Summary 1. Versatility: In terms of adaptability, PCs remain vastly superior to tablets. Not only is the desktop/mouse/menu bar UI intimately familiar to every office worker, but the hardware is versatile, adaptable and powerful, while the OS is multimodal, multitasking, scriptable and customizable. As Steve Jobs observed, versatility is the PCs hallmark, the pickup to the tablets sports car. PCs can handle virtually any application and are good, if not great, at most of them, if you adapt to and live within their boundaries. Not only are PCs available in a virtually unlimited
Figure 8
IT Policy on Apple Products

What is your organizations IT policy toward the following Apple products?
Officially supports Tolerates but doesnt support Doesnt allow
iPhone
50%
iPad
40% 43% 39% 25%
10% 10%
47%
Mac
36%
Data: InformationWeek 2012 iPad Survey of 402 business technology professionals, March 2012
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array of form factors and configurations, but they R set the standard for computational power in small packages. Theres no comparison between a quad-core laptop with 8 GB RAM and a 1-TB disk and a tablet with a power-optimized CPU and 32 GB of flash. By including an x86 Ivy Bridge CPU in its highend Windows 8 tablet, the Surface Pro, Microsoft is attempting to bridge this gap, but with review samples and product availability months away, its success at pulling off a tablet/PC hybrid is a big unknown. 2. Enterprise application support: PCs
and here we mean Windows systems, not Macsare the target client for every enterprise application. Sure, browser interfaces have dramatically improved the prospects for device heterogeneity, but for many legacy applications, its still a Windows world. Add in the fact that Microsoft Office not only defines the standard enterprise file formats (although this is no longer a showstopper since every tablet can display, if not edit, Office documents) but also the application platform. Sure, its easy to read and even edit Office documents on an iPad, but good luck usJuly 2012 12
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FAST FACT
51%
of respondents to our iPad survey have limited support for iOS devices or Macs because critical apps arent available.
ing a collaborative document or form. Although Office will be available on Windows 8 tablets, with Android and iPad ports said to release this fall, its not here yet. Spain does note that software-as-a-service apps, such as CloudOn, that bridge the Office/ tablet gap by adding a software layer, make Office more usable on tablets, and he expects further activity in this area. Of course, running native Windows applications on a tablet, even Microsofts ARM-based Surface RT, is impossible. The workaround entails using some form of remote display software, either a full VDI client like Citrix Receiver or VMware View, or a remote desktop client supporting RDS or VNC. Many commercial ISVs have ported to the iPad, including enterprise stalwarts like Salesforce.com, various SAP products and Oracles EnterpriseOne, but the PC is still the dominant target for business software. Custom enterprise tablet app development is still nascent, a topic well explore in more detail in a future report, but the upshot is that application support is slowing tablet adoption. Our iPad Sur-
Figure 9
Reasons for Limiting Support of Apple Devices

What are your main reasons for limiting support of Apple devices?
Critical applications are not available on Macs and iOS devices
51%
We dont have Apple expertise and dont intend to develop it
36%
We cant easily integrate Apple users into AD or other enterprise authentication/authorization system
34%
Macs and iOS devices are too expensive
27%
Macs and iOS devices are too hard to centrally manage
27%
We have a volume Windows license and cant get one from Apple
20%
We limit the contracts for devices we buy
16%
Apple is too difficult to do business with
9%
Other
12%
Note: Three responses allowed Base: 318 respondents at organizations that don't support or allow use of one or more Apple devices Data: InformationWeek 2012 iPad Survey of 402 business technology professionals, March 2012
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vey found 51% of respondents have limited support for iOS devices or Macs because critical applications just arent available.
3. Familiarity: While using an iPad is childs play, theres still a learning curve to achieve fluency. Ironically, the hurdle is probably
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higher the greater ones PC experience. Those used to navigating directories and mounting network shares will be in for a shock. The concept of a local, user accessible file system is foreign to the iPad, where theres an inextricable link between an app and its data container. Even on Android, application files are well hidden; youll need a third-party file manager to find them. While such app-data amalgamation is convenientyou never need to worry about saving a file on your iPadits frustrating when trying to share information across multiple devices and with other users. Although some third-party file handlers support standard NAS protocols like CIFS, NFS and WebDAV, getting at actual data files on an iPad is difficult to impossible. Its usually easier to share data to a cloud service like Dropbox, iCloud or SkyDrive. In fact, this is a big reason for Dropboxs success, as it acts as the de facto iPad file system, one accessible across platforms. 4. Data entry and manipulation: Although tablets cant match PCs when it comes to number-crunching tasks like video editing or
Figure 10
Approach to Consumer-Centric Technology

What is your organizations general approach as it relates to consumer-centric new technology such as the iPad or other tablets?
2012 2010
Proactive; we treat it like any new technology development and IT quickly looks to see if we can leverage within our enterprise
23% 14%
Accepting; we let employees use it and let them see if theres a value
33% 18%
Neutral; we dont actively test or look at it but are willing to listen if someone makes a suggestion or request
25% 38%
Resistant; any new device needs to meet our design and security standards before its even considered for a test
14% 22%
Prohibitive; we have policies against any new devices and expect everyone to follow them
5% 8%
Base: 400 respondents in February 2012 and 417 in August 2010 Data: InformationWeek Consumerization of IT Survey of business technology professionals
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spreadsheet modeling, one popular meme, that tablets are useless for writing anything longer than an email or Facebook post, is bunk. Sure, touch screens make poor keyboards, but havent these people heard of
Bluetooth? Connect a wireless keyboard and you can type just as fast on a tablet as a PC. That said, the PC is still better for most forms of data entry and manipulation, for a couple of reasons. First, being touch-screen devices,
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tablets (at least until Windows 8 comes along) have no system-wide cursor, meaning theres no mouse or touchpad to allow any form of relative position change. This means every UI interaction entails a trip to the screen, a situation that becomes especially frustrating when coupled with the next tablet reality, the lack of multiple windows. Tablet apps are inherently single window. Yes, tablets can run multiple apps at a time, but its like running every one in full-screen mode. While you can quickly switch between apps without relaunching, you cant simultaneously view them. Arguably, this is a chief source of the tablets simplicity; however, when coupled with word processing text-manipulation-behavior designed for, and user muscle memory accustomed to, a mouse cursor and button clicks, not a touch screen and finger swipes, it makes text editing a frustrating experience. Simple things like cutting and pasting information from one app to another take multiple finger taps, hold-and-drags, and swipes. 5. Peripheral support and I/O: A final domain of PC superiority is I/O interfaces and
MARKET DYNAMICS
Tablet Growth at Expense of PCs

s of April, Apple had sold about 67 million iPads in two years, roughly accounting for 70% to 80% of the tablet market. With sales clipping along at nearly 1.5 million units per week, IDC now estimates that of the 107 million or so tablets sold this year, increasing 33% to almost 143 million next year, nearly two-thirds of those will be iPads, with Android devices making up the remainder (note that IDC doesnt yet include Window 8 or RT tablets in this estimate). In unveiling the third-generation iPad, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that the company sold more tablets in the last quarter of 2011 than any vendor sold PCs in the United States. peripheral support, as anyone who has ever tried to print from a tablet can attest. Dont have a new AirPrint-compatible printer? Good luck getting hard copy from an iPad. Need to
The sales numbers are impressive no matter how you slice them, and should Windows 8 tablets like Microsofts recently announced Surface translate the media buzz to consumer demand, the tablet market could indeed exceed 200 million in the next couple of years. Its true that these figures still cant match the global market for PCs, variously estimated to exceed 350 million this year. But even though PCs outsell tablets 3-to1, growth is virtually nonexistent. Meanwhile tablet sales are increasing at near-triple-digit rates, with one estimate showing tablets reaching nearly 60% of the PC total next year. Clearly, tablets have reached critical mass. Kurt Marko copy files from a USB stick? Sorry, Apples Camera Connection Kit only supports pulling images into iPhoto. Again, the situation is better on Android, but youll still need an assortJuly 2012 15
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Figure 11 ment of dongles and adapters to support the various USB and memory card formats, and neither platform comes close to the PCs connect and access anything convenience. Promising Tablet Use Cases Based on these strengths and weaknesses, the key to a successful enterprise tablet policy is defining tasks and situations where the device can replace a PC, even if it cant entirely displace it. Look for areas where portability, convenience and network mobility are more important than performance and capability. The Role Factor Start a tablet program with employees who share a few traits: Theyre constantly on the go, and much of their work is conversational, talking with customers and employees, as opposed to analytical, building spreadsheets or writing legal briefs. Tablets are great for making presentations, looking up or demonstrating products from online databases, or routine business correspondence. Because tablet documents can be interactive, they enable a
Deployment Timeline: Tablets and Smartphones

What is your organization's timeline for Windows 8 deployment on tablets and/or smartphones?
As soon as it's available
5%
As end users bring it in on personal devices
6%
Within 12 months
8%
Within 24 months
7%
Longer than 24 months
5%
As needed to replace retired devices
8%
Whenever Windows 8 Service Pack 1 releases
1%
Whenever Windows 8 Service Pack 2 releases
0%
We have not yet established a timeline for deployment
26%
Other
1%
No plans to deploy Windows 8 on tablets and/or smartphones
21%
Don't know
12%
R3651011/8 Base: 511 respondents upgrading to Windows 8 Data: InformationWeek Windows 8 Survey of 973 business technology professionals at organizations with 500 or more employees, October 2011
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richer conversation between salespeople and their contacts. Although some executives may see the latest tablet as a necessary status symbol, MicroStrategy's Kerzner says tablets actually empower C-level managers to retrieve information directly, without an intermediary. Where they once might have had an assistant print out slides and memos prior to a meeting, now they can instantly access relevant information as they need it. Tablets also make a good fit for nomadic workers. As electronic forms and records have replaced paper and the clipboard, many workers end up shuttling back and forth between their real jobs and a PC kiosk. Whether its for nurses in a hospital, foremen on a factory floor or sales clerks in a showroom, tablets can allow people to be where theyre needed and still maintain the necessary digital connections to enterprise applications and data. For example, one of MicroStrategys customers, Sonic Automotive, has replaced the 500page binders regional managers used to tote
Figure 12
Percentage of Tablets and Smartphones That Will Run on Windows 8

Approximately what percentage of your tablets and/or smartphones will ultimately run on Windows 8?
Less than 25%
42%
100%
7%
76% to 99%
10% 13%
51% to 75%
28%
25% to 50%
R3651011/9 Base: 405 respondents upgrading to Windows 8 on tablets and/or smartphones Data: InformationWeek Windows 8 Survey of 973 business technology professionals at organizations with 500 or more employees, October 2011
around with iPads, a scenario several major airR are emulating with pilots flight manuals. lines Mobilizing Business Processes Kerzner advises enterprises to look beyond tablets as just high-tech conduits for information distribution and see them as vehicles that can also advance business processes.
Employees need to both consume information and move business processes forward, he says. For example, a CFO reviewing a new purchase order on his tablet should also be able to approve it and automatically send it to the next stage of the ordering process. However, that doesnt mean he must be able to produce a full spreadsheet, Kerzner
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adds. He notes that MicroStrategy is already using tablets in this capacity. Where once sales reps entered new orders and updated status once a week or at the end of the month (whenever they got back into the office), now they are expected to update them daily via their iPads. Plugging tablets into existing business processes is usually done via apps accessing existing back-end enterprise applications; Spain cites SAP as one example of an enterprise system that now supports a mobile front end, and he says he expects to see much more software development in this area. Policy Recommendations 1. Resist the political pressure to let tablet policies be driven by status and power rather than task and function. Make a plan for areas in which tablets can be strategic platforms rather than just another personally owned workday extender. 2. Identify one or two usage scenarios and job types where tablets can replace a PC and use these to pilot tablet applications.
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Start with nomadic workers who can best exploit a tablets mobility, longevity and convenience. Maybe its salespeople who primarily use a PC for handling email, searching product catalogs and making presentations. Or perhaps its roaming workers such as doctors, shop-floor supervisors or sales clerks currently using a PC kiosk for browser-based forms entry and data lookup. 3. Once youve picked the work scenario, develop a tablet/smartphone applification strategy and look for ways to integrate existing business processes with tablets. Start with content-rich tasks and processes where mobile devices are the better platform and find ways in which tablet-optimized apps could significantly improve productivity, efficiency and usability. Use these as pilots for native tablet apps built to support a specific business process. Make your enterprise software suppliers reveal their mobile app plans and factor these into your tablet strategy. 4. Dont forget device support and administration. Develop a mobile device man-
agement program to enforce policies on device configuration, security and data backup. See our InformationWeek MDM Buyers Guide and Research Report for more information. 5. Dont force fit tablets into jobs better suited for PCs. Tasks like extensive data entry (particularly text-based), spreadsheet development, number crunching, application development, and complex graphics or video editing are best left to PCs.
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InformationWeek creates more than 150 reports like this each year, and theyre all free to registered users. Well help you sort through vendor claims, justify IT projects and implement new systems by providing analysis and advice from IT professionals. Right now on our site youll find: Research: Mobile Device Management: The only constant in mobility nowadays is change. Former market leaders such as RIM and Microsoft are now followers straining to keep pace with consumer-driven operating systems from Google and Apple. No two platforms have the same security and management hooks, yet end users are demanding email, calendaring, VPN access and much more. This is changing the face of computingand terrifying the IT managers charged with providing productivity tools while maintaining control of sensitive data. Research: 2012 Consumerization of IT Survey: IT isnt fighting employees on the consumerization of IT anymore. More than half of companies now consider themselves proactive or accepting of consumer-centric tech; 51% already support iPads, just two years after their introduction. Security remains the No. 1 worry about consumer tech, but companies are accepting and even supporting it like never before. Heres how IT can embrace consumerization on its own terms. Strategy: Tablet Security: As businesses rely increasingly on tablets for the productivity benefits they provide, IT must address the security challenges the devices present. PLUS: Find signature reports, such as the InformationWeek Salary Survey, InformationWeek 500 and the annual State of Security report; full issues; and much more.
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Tablet Vs PC

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Tablet vs. PC Form-Factor Smackdown

Report ID: S5280712

Kurt Marko InformationWeek Reports

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Apples Vision of Post-PC World vs. Enterprise Realities

View on Post-PC Age

Completely disagree; Apple products are overhyped

Completely agree; we support device diversity

Mostly disagree; Windows is still the best enterprise platform

Employee Device Use: 2012 vs. 2010

Terminal for thin client or VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)

62% 62% 43% 33%

Tablets (not including iPads)

Supported Devices: 2012 vs. 2010

97% 98% 74% 74% 56%

Android- or Linux-based tablets

Total Number of Devices Used

1-0% 2 More than 5

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Scope of Tablet Deployment

top to 3GUSB adapters, smartphone tethering, 3G Wi-Fi hotspotsthey add complexity.

Importance of Mobile OS Features

Supported Business Applications

IT Policy on Apple Products

40% 43% 39% 25%

Reasons for Limiting Support of Apple Devices

Critical applications are not available on Macs and iOS devices

Approach to Consumer-Centric Technology

Tablet Growth at Expense of PCs

Deployment Timeline: Tablets and Smartphones

As soon as it's available

Percentage of Tablets and Smartphones That Will Run on Windows 8

Less than 25%

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