Tablets on the Corporate Table: Strategies & Selection

Download the Output Report from this Coporate IT Forum workshop. It was attended by 27 delegates from 21 organisations covering a wide cross section of industries including airlines, property and construction, retail, energy, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, recruitment,  healthcare, central and local government, legal, agriculture, food and drink, transport, and financial services.

As little as four years ago, RIM's BlackBerry had a firm hold on the corporate market. So why isn't its tablet device, the PlayBook, the clear choice for enterprises in general, and BlackBerry users in particular?

In contrast to the PlayBook, Apple's iPad has taken both the technology Press and the consumer marketplace by storm since it was first launched. Unusually, it was also quickly recognised as a device-to-watch by corporate IT professionals, who appreciated its potential impact on enterprise IT mobility and spoke of the futility of sitting 'Canute-like' against the growing swell of user demand in the wake of fledgling Bring/Buy Your Own schemes.

Now, with a proliferation of rival tablet/slate devices, corporate questions are coming around to 'which device?', 'for use by whom?' and 'how can we use this to increase productivity, or gain business advantage?'

But choices and answers aren't as straightforward as they might appear, with functionality and usability seemingly as important as security and device control, and existing infrastructure integration. There's plenty of advice on offer from analysts and so-called 'experts'. But what stances are Forum members taking, and why? Do tablets change the device rules within organisations? Can they ever be replacements for desktops or laptops? And when it comes to the remote wiping of devices, what is the position regarding personal data?

The Agenda included the following topics:

• Business cases & productivity: managing demand
• Device Options - pros and cons
• Implications for architecture, infrastructure and service provision
• Device control: security, data segregation, encryption