14 DAY TRIAL // Freelance writer Rob McGarvey has posted what he calls the “10 Reasons to Nix the iPad in Your IT Strategy.” Seemingly a good read at first glance, the report is pretty off on some of the aspects surrounding Apple’s yet-unreleased iPad. The ever-sarcastic MacDailyNews calls McGarvey an “IT doofus” for his poor analysis, and goes to great lengths to correct pretty much every statement made in his article.
To get started, here are the first two factors that, according to McGarvey, make the iPad unacceptable for the IT environment.
1. Slow is as slow is. Even the academics join in the dissing. “Tablets and touch screens do not work in traditional enterprise settings because the interface is much slower than the traditional mouse and keyboard,” said James Wolf, an assistant professor of Information Systems at Illinois State University. Moving your hands around a screen is clunky. “The keyboard/mouse is much faster and easier than the tablet’s input.”
2. “The iPad does not run common office productivity tools,” said Lorenz Lammens, a web strategist and managing director at the Online Design Bureau in Dallas. No Microsoft Word, no PowerPoint, not much of anything important to business today.
McGarvey already commits the ultimate sin by posting a personal opinion on a very sensitive subject, citing other people. Our take is: if you’re planning to convince folks that the iPad is not good for office stuff, bring your own arguments to the table, because the iPad does provide good office tools, compatibility with the common ones, and more. And, to be sure you’re on the safe side, just wait for the thing to fall in your lap, then call it a flop.
McGarvey further digs his own hole by saying that, “Gartner now is projecting an avalanche of 10.5 million tablets to be sold in 2010.” Such big figures don’t just account for kinder gardens and schools, while the research firm is thought to have some clue regarding these matters.
The report also cites the lack of a built-in camera and no multitasking as flaws. Granted, certain organizations may not adopt the device based on this criterion. However, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple enable multitasking in the iPhone OS at one point, especially when it has its own, custom-built silicon.
The experienced writer then goes to claim that the iPad’s lack of Flash support translates into “no watching Web videos,” which is debatable, and that lack of a USB port out of the box translates into a lot of hassle for the end user. Of course, Apple has strict policies regarding inter-connectivity / compatibility with third-party devices, which is not always bad – something that McGarvey seems to overlook.
Reason #8 is as vague and inconclusive as vague and inconclusive gets. "8. Speaking of money, there is no money in the company budget to pay for iPads. There is money for cell phones so a persistent Apple fan might finagle funding for an iPhone in lieu of a BlackBerry, but there is no budget line for tablets. None. That makes saying “No” definitively easier.
At this point, we’re extremely curious on what grounds this analysis was made. What companies are we talking about here? And how does McGarvey know that said companies don’t have current, or future plans that involve tablets and, perhaps, Apple’s iPad?
McGarvey then cites a decade-old, erroneous prediction by Bill Gates about tablet PCs, boasting, “Tablets have never caught on,” which aims to be a resounding conclusion, although we’re pretty sure the author hasn’t nailed this one just yet.
To be noted that the concept of “tablet PC” has changed dramatically since Bill Gates made that assumption and, although devices like the iPad still have a long way to catch on, there’s no indication they won’t. You have Bill Gates in 2001 saying tablet PCs will be a hit, and it takes ten years or more to happen. Then you have Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s current CEO) predict a gloomy future for the iPhone, back in 2007, when Apple shipped the first models. Within the year, Apple’s iPhone garnered massive attention from all corners of the world. Shortly after, every developer wanted to hop aboard the iTunes App Store. Today, the iPhone is one of the most attractive devices out there. Who’s to say that can’t happen with the iPad?
Also worth noting is that, just like the iPhone gained popularity with the launch of the App Store, the iPad may also prove to be much more than what we currently see in those pretty renderings posted over on Apple’s website.