Of Course the iPad will Matter!

The biggest change I’ve seen between the iPhone rollout and the iPad rollout is the menion of ‘business-ready’.  The iPhone was always meant to be a consumer product, although it found its way in to many businesses pretty quickly. I’ve noticed many IT guys with Windows Mobile and Androids, but the CEO has an iPhone.

Apple started pushing the concept of the iPad for business pretty early, and they dedicate a whole section of the iPad site to business (http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/).  They mention connection to Microsoft Exchange, security, and a powerful platform for apps.

While the iPad is a powerful platform for apps, I would debate just how powerful it is. The iPhone/iPad strategy lacks the ability for companies to easily create custom applications and deploy them out to their workforce. Apple does have an Enterprise Developer program, for companies with 500 or more employees. That leaves alot of smaller companies left hanging.

Truth be told, there’s alot of custom software that runs companies both large and small, and you’ll never find it in the App Store. It’s purely custom, it’s not a product, and it belongs to the company that created it.

I would think that Apple would address this issue at some point. Locking out the millions of companies that exist with less than 500 employees is odd.

Granted, Apple would love for all apps to go through it’s App Store and they make their 30%. But for the iPad to really succeed in business, businesses are going to have to be able to create custom applications.

To that end, the low hanging fruit is the HTML5, CS3 approach through Safari. I think this will have some great power in business. But browsers (even with HTML5) can only do so much. Just look at all the great apps on the iPhone. When was the last time you used an iPhone app and thought-’I wonder how this would work in a browser?’

Native applications, even on Windows, are generally better User Interface experiences than browser based applications.

Custom, native applications on the iPad will be the true driving force in it’s adoption in the business world.

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