European Businesses Keen to Deploy Tablets in 2012

­According to International Data Corporation, tablet shipments in EMEA reached more than 12 million units in the first three quarters of 2011 and is slated to cross 20 million units by the end of the year. Though business purchases represent less than 10% of the entire tablet market, the possibility for growth and interest from businesses is huge following the success of the iPad. Functionalities just as a responsive touch screen user-interface, portability/design, and a plethora of business application solutions that address specific vertical business needs, are all factors that motivate the adoption and demonstrate the value in businesses.

So far Apple has been quite successful with the iPad and several iPads have already made their way into the enterprise space. Though Apple seems to attract more interest from businesses, is the iPad suited for all use-cases? Furthermore, with vendors just as HP pulling out of the market, Google's Android lacking a convincing roadmap, Dell and RIM launching incomplete products and plagued with frequent blackouts, the question is do vendors have a clear business strategy, robust products and solutions, competitive pricing, and a focused vision to target and address commercial needs?

IDC recently conducted a study across business in Western Europe that looked at understanding the perceptions of adoption, intention to purchase, applications for specific business needs, preference for features, and acquisition strategies for tablets.

Adoption trend: More than 48% of businesses have either already evaluated and are keen to introduce tablets or purchased a few, and many verticals pointed to interest in purchasing tablets by the first and second half of 2012. With evident uptake among the IT services, professional services industry, other sectors just as transport and storage, utilities and distribution are showing strong interest.

Perception of adoption: More than 22% of businesses think that the present generation of tablets defined by Apple iPad, are more suitable to their needs to put it more exactly than their present equipment, just as traditional tablet devices or vertical application devices.

Applications/usage of tablets in business: Applications and usage of Tablets in businesses vary depending on the industry they function in. General business uses for tablet devices are as presentation tools while customer meetings and to remotely check emails and calendars. Nevertheless tablets are perceived as perfectly then suited for several key vertical applications just as:

While iOS and Android receive a strong response rate, Windows is obviously awaited, with more than 30% of respondents that would choose to have a Windows OS-based tablet device when probed about their OS of choice. As regards to pricing, during businesses will anyway you look at it be price-sensitive, they as well need the right solution and declare that they would accept paying up to 50% above the standard price to have the right features mounted on the devices. Features again vary depending on the business use-case; whether for the choice of screen size to illustrate, or ruggedized features:

Most businesses favor partnering directly with OEM-manufacturers and traditional resellers with few verticals interested in partnering with ISVs. Virtualization and cloud-based technologies are the top preferred technologies considered to support tablet devices.

Credible client device option

Tablets have certainly become a credible client device option, and in part better fulfilling needs which are incorrectly or only partially fulfilled by other devices or platforms. During this study confirms the high interest and concrete evaluation phase already started by many enterprises and medium-sized businesses across Europe, a lot of questions obviously remain, including around OS, product choice, deployment technologies. Businesses will clearly be in the extreme vigilant in their choice, especially at a time when economic instability forces budgets to be spent very cautiously, but together, businesses need to ensure they opt for the right solution that will make them more competitive and flexible to respond to more difficult market conditions.

Some companies are in a wait-and-see mode, nevertheless several others are keen to go ahead, already deploying iPads, or evaluating Android or Windows 7 tablets. 2012 will certainly see growing competitive offering as some vendors are now placing a stronger focus on the commercial market, but meanwhile, could so then leave Apple to continue to gain share in the business space.

With more than 20 million units forecast by 2015, tablets could represent close to one in four client computing devices in the commercial market.