Recently, SAP, a provider of ERP solutions, announced that they will be deploying 17,000 iPads to its employees. SAP already has 17,000 BlackBerry’s in the hands of employees throughout the organization, but within 12 months SAP expects to have just as many employees utilizing iPads.
The sheer number of iPads being deployed isn’t the only impressive part of this rollout. The iPad has been receiving constant praise from the enterprise, and the various tasks that the iPad tablet is being leveraged for is just as impressive. The iPads have been deployed across SAP’s marketing, pre-sales, sales, and mobile app development teams with access to Citrix software for server based applications and business intelligence tools by Business Objects. Also being used is the Mobile Sales for SAP CRM app built by Sybase, a recent SAP acquisition.
The iPad can be cited to have numerous advantages, and the CIO of SAP indicated the iPad’s reboot time, size and weight, and 3G support are some of the critical factors for implementing the device in a corporate environment. He said, All of the executives take it into meetings, it gives immediate access to all information, through access to email, the VPN, business intelligence and CRM. In terms of user experience, it’s the best device on the market right now.”
[Photo courtesy of wordwatch.]