iPad Trouncing Android in Enterprise
The tablet is not yet a standard-issue sidearm in enterprise, but it's well on its way to becoming one — particularly Apple's iPad. — According to Good Technology, which provides mobile device management services to 49 of the Fortune 100 and 182 …
Context & Ripple Effects
Good Technology, whose device-management service reaches 49 of the Fortune 100, is again reporting that the iPad dominates tablet activations on its platform — extending a pattern from January's Q4 2010 mobile device report showing huge enterprise iPad growth. A year earlier, the iPad had already blasted past Android in usage share in general web traffic, so the enterprise data now points the same direction from inside IT departments.
The story traveled widely enough that The Next Web picked it up the same week, framing it against the weakness of rival slates — noting Windows tablets were outselling RIM's PlayBook. That matters because the challengers are fragmenting rather than converging behind a single alternative to Apple.
First-order effects
- For Good Technology and its Fortune 100 customers, the iPad is effectively the default corporate tablet, making Android tablets a marginal second choice in managed deployments.
- Rival slate makers — notably RIM's PlayBook and early Windows tablets — are competing for a distant position in exactly the accounts where mobile device management decisions get standardized.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise software and security vendors are pulled toward iOS-first development, since supporting the dominant managed device yields the fastest return on engineering effort.
- Android tablet makers must either court consumers while ceding the enterprise or invest in the MDM certifications and support infrastructure that Good Technology's customer base demands — a cost most 2011-era Android OEMs had not budgeted for.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, tablet procurement follows the playbook set by the iPhone: employee preference forces IT to standardize around a single vendor's ecosystem, concentrating long-term leverage over enterprise mobility in Apple's hands.
- Device-management platforms like Good Technology become gatekeepers of enterprise adoption — whoever they certify gains access to hundreds of large companies, making MDM support a de facto market-entry requirement for any would-be iPad competitor.
The trend: Consumer devices led by the iPad are being adopted bottom-up into corporate fleets, with mobile device management vendors becoming the arbiters of which platforms enterprise IT will standardize on.