blog Looks like there’s at least one major Australian organisation that is trialling iPads with a view to a much wider rollout. I quote from a forum posting on TechRepublic entitled “Trialling it in large enterprise — 10,000 users”, by a North Ryde-based senior manager with the username ‘Whatevr’:
My team is running a second pilot in the field with technicians for installation/maintenance of subscription TV services contractors. We’re also trialling a few netbooks but I fully expect that the iPad will be the choice. In this environment battery life is king, the battery life is up to 3 times longer on the iPad than the netbooks and it also has a touch interface which is far better in the field than a trackpad or similar pointing device.
Further as we’ve discovered through our surveys and feedback and research, the technician community is already used to the iPhone interface – 66% have chosen that as their smartphone of choice, with about 20% choosing Nokia, and then the also rest. Again we were surprised by that uptake.
Would be interested to find out who this is — there can’t be that many Australian organisations with about 25,000 employees. I’m seeing a fair few iPad trials out there at the moment — the Macquarie University deployment is just one example.
Feel free to drop me a line at renai@delimiter.com.au with more local examples — I’ll keep it quiet until it’s OK to go public with it. Or even just use the anonymous tip form if you’re uber-paranoid.
Image credit: Apple