Always Learning
I have an embarrassing confession to make: I am not an Apple fan boy. I am, however, increasingly isolated.
In this age of consumerisation, where people have access to better technology at home than in the office, it has become almost de rigueur to be able to show off a bunch of cool apps on your latest Steve Jobs device.
Apart from an antique iPod, I have not yet succumbed to the tempting combination of polished metal and a half-eaten, beautifully-lit fruit. And despite working in publishing, my media life is still dominated by Microsoft Word and BlackBerry’s email server.
That combination is increasingly rare in UK plc. One CIO mentioned to me recently how his 10-strong board had been given iPads. It was, he believed, the epitome of forward thinking. Other companies have taken a similar strategy, giving devices to executives on the move.
Some IT leaders are honest enough to admit that the device is mainly used to keep their children happy playing ‘Angry Birds’. Others, however, are convinced the device provides the future of enterprise connectivity.
But there is an elephant in the room: consumerisation, which turns the traditional model of IT procurement inside out. Increasing number of users are buying their own devices and expecting the business to provide secure connectivity.
Another CIO mentioned to me recently how he was surprised that Apple seemed less concerned by enterprise than consumer concerns. But why should the technology giant’s focus be the enterprise?
A purchase order of 10 iPads for a single company looks diminutive next to global consumer tablet sales. Estimates suggest that by year-end 2010, Apple had sold somewhere near 15 million iPads.
It does not stop there. Analysts expect the technology giant to ship as many as 30 million units of its second-generation iPad during its first year of sales. In short, Apple and innovative technology peers such as Google are helping to break the traditional model of enterprise computing.
Rather than licences and devices being purchased internally, employers are picking their own technology and expecting to be able to plug and play. It is a development which creates new and rapidly emerging challenges for the CIO.
This year’s CIO Connect annual conference on the 4 and 5 October in London will address such challenges, showing how IT leaderscan deal with this transformational stage for organisations.
And who knows? By October, I might even have succumbed and become yet another Apple fan boy.
Mark Samuels, editor
Follow Mark on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mark_samuels