Yes, who was that MS V-P who, last September, said that tablets were a fad, and that iris projection screens were the new hot thing?

The tablet train has definitely left the station. I just got my first-year-at-college step-daughter an iPad and (what is probably) the same keyboard mentioned by John (sells for $55, can you believe it?) -- and got her a cheaper notebook (a 17-incher with a full number pad) than the light (and smaller screen) one she had wanted to take to class. She'll take the iPad to class and type her notes (she's a 90 wpm typist while carrying on a conversation) into a Google Doc, which she will access on her notebook for organization.

A fact of corporate life at management levels: one is always going to meetings. Bringing along your iPad w/ keyboard is vastly preferable to lugging along your notebook.

Any organization that switches to Google Apps is a candidate for iPads: IT TCO falls through the floor. Add the live iris scan app, and your two-factor security is complete (in live iris scanning, the eye has to have the normal twitches -- which prevents dead eyes from being used).

As for where corporate apps will run: I can tell you that SAP won't run on SQL Server for large enterprises. The choices are Oracle or DB2, neither of whom will be running on Windows (Denali might change this, and I hope it does -- in my experience, SQL Server is the brightest spot in MS-land).

That leaves Tier 2 apps like the ones I spend my working life on. Right now we're on Windows platform period. 3 years from now we will be running on iPads just fine, thank you (and not on Citrix, which is available now). Right now we are only on SQL Server (which I like very much for its ease of use, fwiw); 3 years from now we will run on PostGreSQL, whether I like it as much or not, because the market will drag us there. Three years from now our App Server will be whatever the customer wants, which (given that Apple has left the server market) will be Windows or some Enterprise version of Linux. It's not what some V-P at MS thinks (or pitches for marketing effects), but what the V-P of IT at the customer wants. Any company big enough to have a real V-P of IT is big enough to call the shots about what they want. They talk, we listen, and act.

Hank



>>>>So far the users say they don't want anything more to do with a grandpa-box notebook computer.
>>
>>Sometimes I'm slow on the uptake John, so please bear with me. ..
>>
>>I can understand why a mobile user might say that.
>>
>>Would someone like me or 90% of my clients who work primarily in one place prefer an Ipad to a notebook or a desktop?
>>Why?
>
>Bill, you're asking the right question but maybe wanting the wrong answer. I got the same vibe from Craig's post -- Orville, it'll never fly! The fact is, it's flying.
>
>I am not being an Apple fanboy, as I was memorably called here a few months ago. It's just that the wild success of the iPad speaks for itself. This includes the business world. We should think about how we can use this enthusiasm to our advantage instead of arguing that it shouldn't exist. The train already left the station.