Mobile Technology is About BI and More

5/2/2011 at 2:59 pm by The Sage ERP Team

It’s no secret that constantly chasing after the latest piece of technology is a Sisyphean task that can never be successfully completed. As soon as we get our hands on the newest smartphone or the most advanced car, a new one is right around the corner, offering some new advanced feature that we’re all just dying to try. Anyone who plunked down a hefty sum for an iPad last year knows what that feels like, since Apple just announced that the iPad 2 – which will feature both a front-facing and rear camera – is now available.

The iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, but apart from the cameras, it doesn’t seem to offer much that the original incarnation didn’t. So if you’re staring with disdain at the iPad that you once loved, wondering why it can’t be as sleek and svelte as its younger sibling, you can relax. Both systems offer many of the same benefits to business leaders – a major one being that it allows executives to take their business IT solutions with them wherever they go.

Trying to check up on data and answer emails via a cell phone can be tricky, with the small screen and even smaller keyboard making it hard to get work done. But the iPad has filled this niche by offering business owners a way to stay in touch with their companies through a computer-like interface – without the hassle of lugging a heavy laptop around.

But being able to check up on your business intelligence data while you sip mai tais on the beach in St. Bart’s is only one part of what tablet computers like the iPad and the iPad 2 can offer to fledging and well-established businesses alike. PC World offers a few other ways that companies are taking advantage of tablets.

“There’s no doubt that businesses are finding productive and creative ways to use tablets,” writes Katherine Noyes for the publication.

Overall, companies are using the devices to make life a little simpler. For example, travelers passing through New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports can use their iPads to order food from the airports’ various eateries to be delivered directly to them at the terminal in under 10 minutes. Using other applications, customers can also use the provided iPads to browse magazines and newspapers, check up on flight statuses, play games and much more.

Many business professionals are finding the iPad to be a useful tool in sales, as well. Traveling businesspeople can bring iPads with them to offer quick demonstrations of products, show off positive press and allow potential clients to virtually “sample” the company’s offerings. Many medical supply firms, such asAbbott Laboratories, Medtronic and Boston Scientific, have begun equipping their sales people with iPads in order to allow them to make better presentations while on the road.

These are just a couple of ways that businesses are using mobile technology. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 65 percent of the Fortune 100 have given Apple’s iPad a try in one professional capacity or another since its debut. Will your business follow suit?