Apple tablet computer creating a mobile communion with instant-on, ubiquitous access
In the enterprise, the iPad seems to have a liberating effect on the way people work, and how they engage with each other. It has less to do with CPU cycles and RAM and more with the touch UI, dimensions and weight, and battery life. Here’s why.
When Hugh Owen wakes up in the morning, the first thing he reaches for after the alarm clock is his iPad 2. Even before he gets out of bed, he’s started reviewing the flock of corporate reports on yesterday’s metrics and today’s plans.
Owen is director of mobile marketing for MicroStrategy, a McLean, Va., vendor of business intelligence software. He, and others at the company, say the iPad’s attributes are leading to unexpected changes in the way people work and work together.
About 2,300 MicroStrategy employees now have an Apple iPad tablet, usually an iPad 2, and many, like Owen, also have an iPhone 4. [For the MicroStrategy’s iPad deployment challenges, see the previous related story “iPads power productivity gains at MicroStrategy.”] In many but not all cases, the tablet replaces a Windows laptop. Some of the tablets have 3G cellular capability; others rely only on Wi-Fi for network connections and Internet access.
They run some existing Web applications, originally created for the laptops. Employees view and work with current business data pulled from the MicroStrategy BI suite. They create, share and view a fast-growing array of PDF-based documents, and watch or show corporate videos.
BACKGROUND: iPad 2 both excites and frustrates business customers
Increasingly, MicroStrategy is creating its own internal iOS applications, such as one that lets users file expense reports, time-off requests, and a bunch of other similar internal housekeeping; and supervisors can approve these whenever and wherever they can wirelessly log in via their iPad.
The tablets soon will be updated with iOS 5, the latest version, due to be released this fall.
The tablet is causing the vendor to shift more focus to iPad-based BI apps that its customers use to recast arcane analytics into readily comprehensible, near real-time information for business decisions.
Owen estimates that about 50% of his time is spent at his office desk in McClean, Va. “The iPad lets me continue working and manage my team the other 50%, in meetings, for example,” he says. “It’s changed the way I work.”
Changing the way people work
Routinely, Owen now begins his day reviewing the company’s internal reports, or running his own, sometimes while still in bed. He carries the tablet to the kitchen and while making coffee checks field activities listed for the coming workday, or customer feedback posted yesterday at day’s end. “Before, I had to wait until I reached my desk,” he says. “Now I can start making decisions when I’m not tethered to my desk.”
2011 TECH PRIORITIES: Finding a place for iPads
Owen and others think the iPad for the first time lets a mass audience easily connect to very accessible and easily used data resources and computing services. The real enablers for this have less to do with computer features like RAM and CPU power and more to do with Apple’s insights into how and who uses tablets. The tablet’s instant-on capability, its size and light weight, and 10-hour battery life are three keys to the iPad’s success, they say.
“The instant-on is a big change,” Owen says. “In a meeting, do I hit a laptop button and wait for what seems like two minutes or do I hit an iPad button and instantly get my email?”
“The difference between getting a laptop out of sleep mode, starting the browser, entering a URL, waiting for the download, versus a single tap on the iPad and a handful of seconds [waiting] is immense,” agrees Mark LaRow, senior vice president of products for MicroStrategy.
So immense that Apple has introduced the instant-on capability to its computer lineup with the latest version of Mac OS X.
Apple’s investment in the tablet’s battery and in power management is having a dramatic impact on mobile users. “The [10-hour] battery life is a huge game changer,” Owen says. “I’m never concerned about running out of power. But if I take a laptop to two or three meetings, I know I’ll have to plug it in [to an outlet] at some point.” Nighttime has become iPad recharging time. In the morning, he just unplugs the tablet and never worries that he’ll run out of power during the day.
Finally, Apple’s obsession with the overall iPad dimensions and weight, and the slick touchscreen user interface, is raising “convenience” to a strategic issue. “The touch interface on the iPad, and the iPhone, is much easier to use than a mouse,” says LaRow. “There’s something very human about touching something and seeing it happen in direct response.”
The intimate interface
The iPad seems to invite individual interactions that laptops don’t. The tablet’s form factor means you can hold the iPad closer to your face, LaRow notes. “I never read a newspaper on my laptop at home,” he says. “But I do now on my iPad.”
All these features also create a kind of mobile communion, facilitating a new or at least easier and more frequent information sharing between two or more people.
“There’s something about the iPad that makes it more acceptable to put down in front of you at a meeting [and work with it],” says Owen. “It’s more like scribbling notes on paper compared to opening up a laptop and typing. With a laptop, you’re almost ‘sectioning’ yourself off from the meeting, creating a wall. But with the iPad, people can see you involved in the meeting. The iPad’s design removes those barriers [created by a laptop].”
Owen cites the experience of employees at Guess, the clothing retail chain, which had deployed iPads to the stores. He’s seen Guess employees listen to a customer’s (or a regional manager’s) question, pick up an iPad, type on it, and then show the customer the requested information. “It’s like writing on paper and then holding it up for them to see, or handing it to them,” Owen says. “You wouldn’t even try that with a laptop. The barrier of sharing information is removed by the iPad.”
The iPad time machine and productivity
The iPad is recasting the company’s understanding of productivity: Users have effective access to corporate data and applications whenever they want. The result is that business processes can flow faster and more smoothly, without bottlenecking because employees are away from their desks.
MicroStrategy created a native iOS app for employees called Corporate Request Center, a rather simple program that lets employees and supervisors handle eight business processes, such as time off requests, expense report approvals, receivables status checking and employee reviews.
“In the past, if a member of my team submitted expense reports, we’d have to wait until I got back to my desk, checked my email, clicked on the attachment, read it and approved it,” Owen recalls. “Now, all these specific requests are in my iPad app and I can see, review and act on them at any time of the day. By being able to act then, I stop being a bottleneck to the organization. The process, whatever it is, is no longer waiting for my decision.”
“There are all kinds of moments during the day when you can get these kinds of things done with the right kind of mobile device,” says Dan Kerzner, the company’s senior vice president of mobile. “This time is lost if you’re not with your laptop. But an easy-to-use, accessible mobile device suddenly unlocks this possibility. It’s a use case that the laptop can’t cover.”
Apps: narrowing focus to enlarge effectiveness
The concept of focused, task-specific apps that do one thing clearly and simply is another virtue of the iPad for MicroStrategy users. “In the PC world, in the past, we were much more inclined to build Web pages, for example, that would let you do everything you could possibly want to do: a thousand different directions and functions,” Owen says. “But in the ‘app’ world, it’s a much more consolidated view. All our internal apps do one thing very, very well.”
Owen thinks this is a product of Apple’s focus on designing software that caters to the needs and requirements of the 80% of users who are not “power users.” “You read complaints at the tech blogs that ‘the iPad doesn’t do this or that,'” he says. “But by excluding those things, Apple produces an experience that the masses can just pick and go with. Android devices, which we’ve studied, have a much steeper learning curve than iOS devices.”
ADVICE: Five iPad safety tips
The end result is what Dan Kerzner calls the “ultimate information consumption device.” That’s born out by at least one study that finds iPad users’ satisfaction with the tablet actually increases over time.
“The iPad form factor lets you deliver software and take it with you anywhere,” he says. “That’s not the case with other devices.”
“We don’t see ‘mobility’ as an incremental change,” Kerzner says. “In 2013-14, everyone will be living and working in a fundamentally different way. Software and business processes need to change to keep up with that.”
John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnwcoxnww
Email: john_cox@nww.com
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