It’s the year of the tablet – but what’s the best kind for small businesses?
More small business owners are expected to pick smart phones or tablets in lieu of laptops and desktop computers in the future, according to a survey by New York-based Newtek Business Services.
And among small businesses looking to pick a tablet brand that boosts productivity, the right pricepoint is a key factor, too, according to this story in eWeek.com.
If you're buying a tablet this holiday, what kind are you getting? Take our weekly ShopTalk poll, here, and read more here about the different tablet options available.
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9 comments:
If you ask many small businesses that have bought tablets, and actually hear from the people using them, I think you'll find that tablets are not very well suited for many day-to-day operations. An ultra book is much more useful for business needs than a tablet, and in some cases can cost less.
Tips for small business:
- Pick a great phone with 4G and tethering for all employees
- Pick an ultrabook with a history of good build quality for all employees (Lenovo comes to mind)
- If you think you need tablets, go back and ask yourself "why?", because chances are, that money would be better spent on your employees (you could purchase a corporate gym membership, a company-sponsored outing, and perhaps a few other small things for the price of one tablet depending on how many employees you have)
But does an ultrabook cost $500? Not a high quality one. Also, what about the small businesses so small they can't afford an IT department to maintain the ultrabooks?
That's where a tablet wins hands down. Maintenance is extremely low, no moving hinges to break, no detachable or spinning hard disks to fail. Plus, access to application like word or excel is available from Microsoft, Apple or other vendors that will maintain servers that you can remote to without having to house them inside the small business.
Truth is, most small business need access to applications like word or excel, email, maybe a social feed access and internet capabilities. That's it. Computing is going small.
In response to the comment above, those are many of the assumptions businesses make when deciding to purchases tablets. However, having worked with tablets, as well as businesses that made the plunge, things don't go quite as smoothly as you would think. We're still not there yet regarding major application compatibility (even Microsoft's attempt with Surface/Win 8/Metro can be seen as questionable).
Many ultrabooks nowadays come with SSD (solid state drives), with no spinning metal, and they are getting stronger (at least on the upper-end of the market). Maintainability is more about having the operating system (usually Windows) set up properly, no need to have an IT dept.
Computing may be going smaller, but our fingers are getting bigger. :)
Ahhh but name a reliable $500 ultrabook with 10 hours of battery life....Thanks to Apple, that's becoming the new normal in tablet sized computing.
Microsoft's attempt with Surface is more about trying to be different than trying to be innovative or focused on a better experience. Application compatibility is not so much a concern with all of the different cloud based providers (google docs, salesforce) and native applications that understand the more popular formats (.doc, .xls, etc).
Also, maintainability is not just about having your OS of choice "setup properly" but it also speaks to the resiliency of the OS. Windows is still a virus magnet. IT departments usually handle inoculations. Oh, and IT departments would normally handle setting up the machines properly as well because your Windows licensed OEM is bound to put a ton of crapware (and stickers) on the machine you buy.
s well because your Windows licensed OEM is bound to put a ton of crapware (and stickers) on the machine you buy. Business Listings
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Business people can use tablets to keep in touch with clients and perform other work on the go.It is very important to have a tablet for the business.
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It really depends on what your business is trying to do. If a small business needs to show their customers that they're catching up with the latest technology, consider getting an ultrabook/tablet hybrid. You still get the performance of a laptop and take advantage of the portability of a tablet. Other tables out there only simulates a laptop but it lacks the true power of it.
I think that the Ipad is very good for everithing. You can even download whatsapp on it. And works fine.
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