Barclays Bank buys 8,500 Apple iPads in one go Barclays Bank has bought no less than 8,500 Apple slabs of fondling loveliness in one go, The Channel can reveal. The buy, made with dealer Insight UK, is believed to be one of the largest roll outs of the iPad or indeed any tablet in the UK finance sector, and signals the growing acceptance of the tab tech in corporate land …
If you want a tablet for home, for a bit of browsing then the cheaper Android tablets may appeal but if you are using it for work purposes you are going to want something easier / cheaper to manage (so an iPad may actually have a lower TCO), better built and yes staff do feel better given better tools and the iPad is widely perceived (regardless of individual opinions) to be a 'premium' product. So any extra purchase cost is insignificant.
My guess is they looked at how easy to deploy, develop, manage and maintain and the TCO was significantly lower for iPad plus developing bespoke apps could be a very significant cost and iOS is less of a moving target. Think we will see a lot more tablets in business over the coming year.
There are tablets costing half as much which would be as capable of doing what the bank needs. Playbooks for example. They might not be "sexy" but they work and they carry business friendly features like remote wipe, encryption and so on. And they cost 1/3 the price.
... and when they want to buy some more and find out they are not available. If I were spending a lot of cash developing applications I would want to ensure the OS and hardware were likely to be supported for a good many more years. The initial purchase cost of the tablet itself will be a small part of the total cost (and benefit) for Barclays.
At this point, how long will you be able to continue on Windows sticking around? Seriously, who needs it? Nothing that worked on the original iPad in 2007 is yet to quit working on iOS 6 unless the app was pulled from the store. Any business can easily deploy and control iPads, installing all software and configuring them automatically. If you don't know this, you might want to look into it before they unplug the last ancient relic 'Wintel' PC that many of us gave up on, permanently, a decade or two ago.
Most everything is web enabled now anyway, and it works anywhere outside of platform-locked, non-standard "Internet Explorer" browser. Microsoft's contributions to technology are overrated.
I have been supporting Microsofts, Apples, the various forms of Linux including Android and other OS's that are weird and wonderful: yet you would consider my workplace a "Microsoft Shop."
Just because someones main role is to support a Microsoft OS certainly does not mean they cannot easily transfer any knowledge to another OS. I would say most admins are well aware of how to use more than one OS. Only the Lazy ones do and they come from any eco-system.
The following pump from HP's site.
“Businesses used to face a tough purchase decision: How to find a product that will delight employees and help them be more productive, while also making sure IT can secure and manage it," said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Printing and Personal Systems, HP. "The HP ElitePad meets all those tests. It combines the great style and user experience consumers demand with the features IT requires.”
It's not fair of me to bring it up now as this product won't be released, US side, until Jan 2013.
Anywhoo looks like the iPad is increasingly making some very nice inroads into business, and kinda ticks all the boxes that was referred to above... ahem. ( OK, not sure about the sysadmin side, but ...)
Compared to the options the iPad is better - easier to deploy, more secure, easier to learn, likely to be supported for longer. When you look at TCO of Apple kit and iPads in particular the tables are turned - training and support are big costs for companies and Apple stuff is easier and cheaper. We have a mixed Windows and Mac installation here and more and more people are shifting over to Macs. Even if they need Windows for legacy reasons Parallels is a doddle.
Angry Birds at the same time whilst being paid to do it can't be wrong.
From the horses mouth on a undisclosed site whilst chatting to a Personal Adviser whilst upgrading his desktop PC.
he was a bit put out that he couldnt play movies or other streaming media on it ;))))
"I can confirm we are seeing significant interest in the take up of Apple iPads in large enterprise".
Yes, because some VP fanboi thinks he knows best and without consulting IT, sinks a wad of company cash into a device that cannot handle 90% of the Windows based programs most corporations use. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy.
Apple devices in the Enterprise make as much sense as a manure spreader in a linen factory. In either case, you know the idiot who made the decision won't be the one cleaning up the crap.
If they're bought for a specific purpose that doesn't require Windows compatibility, why should that be a deciding factor? Many major business applications now have iOS apps, so what's the difference whether they access these applications with clients on PCs or iPads?
Basically you're saying that because they use Windows now, they should always use Windows, because after all only Windows is compatible with Windows! If corporations thought the way you did, they'd have just announced an order for 8500 green screen terminals because the new system would have to be mainframe compatible.
Truly the fanbois are writing this article and laughing at the bad anti-Apple puns. Windows is a mind numbing racket, and is certainly not original, powerful, well managed, or even well written to begin with. All running on generic hardware.
You've all seen this coming, but many were oblivious. Vista was reviled. Win 7 didn't really offer much over what Vista promised. Now, Windows 8 is just Microsoft with their pants down chasing after Apple's iPad, but what will happen is they will instead lose the COMPUTER market. It's too late to effectively challenge Apple and Google at this point, there is no way anyone will develop enough for Surface to make it a worthwhile challenger.
How many apps on the RT store anyhow? Twelve?
What happens if staff decides to buy flashy app on company credit card?
How do you stop staff member sitting on Facebook / Drawsomething all day? Or ramming Dropbox full of confidential company documents?
Given these are the monkeys who sold endowment policies for years and generally will advise you based on the biggest backhander they receive, the device matches the owners well.
iOS devices have restrictions built into them that you can turn on. It would be very easy for the admins to lock the iPads down once they have a generic build (if you can call it that) installed. Very simple, very quick. These restrictions include the ability to install & uninstall apps, make purchases & even surf the web.
and some 17 year old chinless wonder - who is probably an "account manager" - is waving an iPad around I will switch banks immediately. This sort of news to a hacker is like a red rag to a bull. It only takes a few bent bastards to accidently "lose" one of two of these for a few thousand quid. Hey presto, suddenly you have professionals picking your virtual locks and using these devices as a way in. Don't tell me it's secure, nothing is secure. A portable device that can access a financial institutions internal networks (see other articles)? Bad f%^$ing idea.
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