Is iPad a catch for business professionals?
iPad is making all the news in the internet cloud, with just two days into its grand launch there are many unanswered questions that might be lurking in the minds of potential buyers. IT Professionals, students, home users, businessmen or the average kid next door; everybody seems to be taken over by the iPad mania. So let’s have a rundown on the good’s and bad’s of the Apple iPad if you are a business professional looking to buy an iPad.
# The catch-it factors
• Integration with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 for on the go push email, calendar events, and contacts securely.
• Create and manage calendar invitations, find directions to your next meeting, and search your Global Address List.
• Network communications are protected with built-in support for Cisco IPSec VPN, WPA2 Enterprise Wi-Fi, and SSL/TLS.
• Certificate-based authentication enables iPad to securely connect with corporate data via Exchange and VPN.
• Configuration profile for your business that includes information about your company’s VPN, email, wireless network, and passcode policies.
• Apps like iWork make it easy to create presentations, spreadsheets or formatted documents.
• Awesome battery life of around 10 hours, that too during heavy usage.
• Apps that will allow you to sketch ideas on a virtual whiteboard, and then emailing them to your collages.
• The large LCD screen is perfect for checking business datasheets.
• iPad features the first ever desktop-class productivity suite specifically for Multi-Touch devices.
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# The trash-it factors
• Lack of multitasking is a big turn-off as business professionals need to multi-task and switch between applications as time is of the essence.
• Apple has missed a trick by adding more or less of the same processing power that is inside the iPhone’s hood. They should have given it a more potent hardware so as to lure in people into thinking of it as a viable replacement for Netbooks.
• Lack of Flash support means that you can’t open websites that have flash intensive interface.
• Redundant camera doesn’t help either as video conferencing is out of question.
• No USB port means that you can't connect peripheral devices for presentations.
