iPad as an IT asset: does the iPad make the grade in your organization?

Your organization may be one of those in which a section of employees, and users of the IT resource you provide or manage, have decided they could work more productively if they had iPads. Have they been able to present a clear case based on business need? And will this device fully replace their current Windows-based laptop? Or will they actually need two systems now because the Oracle client on which many of the organization’s key business apps depend cannot be installed?

The debate rages around issues of business value, support, security and compliance. Advocates for the iPad will downplay the risk they pose in carrying inadequately protected corporate data. Hardpressed IT teams will be concerned about malware implications. Strategists will be wondering what the asset lifecyle is going to be like for the iPad compared to the relative certainty with which conventional systems can be planned and budgeted.

ITAM and IT help desk: important stakeholders in the iPad debate

IT asset management teams have already been asked to think about the software license compliance for apps downloaded to mobile phones, and next they will find themselves shouldering responsibility for license compliance for iPad apps with little or no infrastructure to help them. And will a population of iPads be equipped with a defined portfolio of apps that the help desk will be able to absorb and support, or will that be deemed too constricting for the ‘innovative’ iPad users, in which case the help desk end up supporting apps they have never seen before?  This may be an extreme position to take, but questions such as these will need answering if there is to be an honest assessment of the hidden costs of introducing iPads.

If you have iPads springing up among your users, we’d like to hear from you. Please email me.

About the Author

Colin Bartram's background in IT Asset and Service Management runs uninterrupted from the 1980s, and includes specifying, writing, selling and supporting software solutions. Today he contributes to product strategy and marketing for the Vector Networks group of companies. His spare time is focussed on his horse and the related demands of maintaining 5 acres of ancient pasture in Derbyshire in the UK.