What is next? Tablets?
WebEx, remote desktop, MS-Office, overnight trip to client site, very usable on an airplane to do emails and review spreadsheets, and works even more beautifully in the meeting to make presentations, uses cloud storage for the documents you need; managing traffic disruption, reviewing bid slides and sending a tweet to the airline and getting an instant reply. Sometimes social media works magic, than trying to contact the call centre. And it is light on the bag too. Well, it is not the mini laptop we are talking about. It's the tablet, pioneered by the iPad. And if you think this is a concept scenario, it is not. This one is taken from a recent real life experience.
And in case any one doubts that tablets will become a truly enterprise device, check out the Gartner Top Predictions for IT organizations (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1480514). "By 2013, 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets"
Setting up the device itself might be an obnoxious exercise - Procuring Micro Sims, setting up iTunes accounts, adding apps with a credit card and etc etc. Not an enterprise grade experience. Strikes me that we could do with a managed fulfillment service.
But why tablets cannot replace laptops?
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Lack of a real keyboard makes it challenging
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Limited storage
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Size of screen
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Security and interoperability of enterprise applications
I could only think of the basic differences at this time. They are like sports convertibles - do it with style and panache, but it's not a car for every need.
Having said that, all the negatives can be turned around quite easily - just need a dose of creativity and innovation. Haven't we after all evolved from the X86 to the PC to laptops. They demanded a change of perception more than anything else, and change is something which always encounters resistance. Helps provoke the realization that we do not just buy devices - we need to adapt to new innovative ways of working, new apps, newer personal ways to engage with customers.
The most striking part of using a tablet in front of a customer is the relative intimacy. Highly open and personal, we are moving away from the clichéd 'across the table customer v/s vendor' to a more rich form of communication and at the same time oozing innovation. How much is the highly open, personal and innovative communication and relationship building during a RFP or a quarterly review worth to the organization? The price of the device? No. The price of investing in innovation customers can relate to? Yes.
Mobility is transforming the globe, the way businesses are being done. Who is going to catch the train early is yet to be seen, but the ones who do, will reap the benefits. Game changer, this one?
