Opinion: IT must face the inevitable rise of the tablet
Any IT administrator out there who figured (or hoped) that this whole tablet "fad" wouldn't gain traction in the corporate world is in for a surprise: 41 percent of today's mobile workforce is equipped with a tablet, and by year's end, that figure could reach 75 percent, according to survey results recently released by iPass. And no, employees aren't just using their slick portable machines to play Angry Birds; 87 percent of workers with tablets said they use the machines for actual job purposes.
This leaves IT departments with two choices: They can stick their heads in the sand and ignore tablets, thus risking security breaches, employee ire, and lost opportunities, or they can accept this next wave of mobile computing (grudgingly or otherwise) and adapt policies and practices accordingly.
Evidently, end-users are already adapting their work practices to tablet use. According to The iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report, only 27 percent of workers with tablets received them from their respective organisations, meaning 73 percent are using their tablets for work, whether or not IT approves. iPass drew its findings from responses from more than 3700 employees at 1100 companies worldwide,
Mobile workers are using their smartphones (94 percent of respondents have smartphones, by the way) and tablets for a range of business-related purposes beyond just checking email: 47 percent of the total respondent pool (those who may or may not have tablets) said they use their devices for taking notes, 39 percent use them for contact and contract management, 33 percent said they check into office suites via their portable devices, 30 percent sign in to social media for work purposes, and 25 percent said they engage in web conferencing via their tablets or smartphones.