Can Apple Dazzle Enterprises With iPad Air?

The crowd outside San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Tuesday morning rippled with anticipation - soon Tim Cook, the Apple CEO would take the stage and try to replicate the dazzling display of salesmanship usually associated with Steve Jobs.

The lights dimmed, the music played and Tim Cook, along with an assortment of his Apple posse, walked the audiences through new Apple offerings; from the free release of the Maverick OS to the launch of the highly anticipated cylindrical Mac Pro, but it was the release of the iPad Air that caught our attention.

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook speaks about the new iPad Air with Retina display during the Apple event in San Francisco, California October 22, 2013. (Image courtesy Reuters-Robert Galbraith)

Design, Function and Form

The elegant and svelte design of the iPad Air radically changes the ergonomics of tablets in the work place. Manufactured to weigh in at less than one pound (450 grams), 7.5mm thickness and gorgeous Retina display, the iPad Air (as it is rightly named) seems designed for the enterprise user. For enterprises however the value addition here is more than just skin-deep.

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As corporate upgrade cycles come to a peak towards the end of the year the iPad Air presents itself as a valid choice for enterprises; considering the inclusion of Apple’s brand new A7 chip along with the new M7 motion processor, the 64-bit processor effectively makes the tablet future proof for App development. By ensuring the ability of enterprises to make custom apps, Apple is targeting a highly valuable segment of business considering the fact that 90 percent of all tablets in enterprises are iPads.

MIMO: Wireless Through Any Channel

Another key feature that could attract the enterprise segment to Apple is the inclusion of the MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out) feature. MIMO would enable the 802.11n network standard to allow multiple antennas in the iPad Air’s Wi-Fi architecture, which would in turn make data transmission over multiple streams a reality, increasing the overall throughput, which is a critical enterprise variable.

iWorks Free, Goodbye MS Office?

Another indicator that gives credence to Apple’s enterprise ambitions is the free release of its iWorks App that effectively addresses the foundation of productivity tools. This release comes at a critical juncture since companies that are already using various versions of Microsoft Office (nearly 75 percent of total users) are showing reticence when considering upgrades to Office 2013. Forrester Research shows that 22 percent of companies are still willing to migrate to Office 2013 however the adoption rate has slowed over the last year. It is likely that iWorks may attempt to eat in to the already receding MS Office market share with such a shift in attitudes. The hesitance in adoption can give Apple enough confidence to attempt a significant coup in the productivity app segment, at least in the mobility market. The best-case scenario for sourcing officers in IT departments would be a better negotiating position when dealing with Microsoft in the pricing of its Office 365 subscription rates.

Expect Surging Demand For iPad

And although the last quarter saw a decline in the shipments of iPads from 19.5 million to 14.6 over the previous quarter, this can be reasonably explained by the reticent buying behavior of consumers in anticipation of the new iPad release. Now that Apple has assured shipment of the iPad Air as well as iPad Mini 2 by November 1, 2013, the next quarter shipments are most likely to increase specially by enterprises. In fact, according to Forrester Research 18 percent of all tablet purchases by 2017 will be made by enterprises.

The confidence in the iPad’s product penetration is so high that Tim Cook, CEO at Apple firmly stated at the event - “Regardless of what you may hear, or read, about how many are sold or activated, iPads are used more than any of the rest. And not just a little more — a lot more! iPads are used four times more than any of those other tablets put together.”

Overall the hardware upgrade and app offerings from Apple yesterday are an interesting development. However what disappointed was the iPad Air lacking TouchID fingerprint security feature as well as its lack of the 802.11ac network transmission standard. How this balance of features will affect enterprise attitudes remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that Apple has clearly positioned the iPad Air to cater to enterprises as a viable technological asset.