Why do I suggest this? for two main reasons
Brand Recognition
I use a Google Android tablet but most comments from non gadget people is ‘Oh Cool an iPad’. Much like the Hoover brand of the early 1900’s which became synonymous for the vacuum cleaner the iPad is now synonymous with tablet devices. Soo much the ‘Legals’ are starting to gather as Forbes discusses.
In addition, come launch day the general press are all of a flutter with the new iPad from Apple, you don’t see that when Samsung launch their new Note or Mototrola their new Xoom Tablets.
This virality and brand recognition will lead to more iPads being purchased to get a tablet! Its not a bad thing, just the way marketing works.
BYOD
When I walk through any public waiting space (train stations and airports) the device of choice for consuming media is the iPad, the majority of these people are on the way to or from work. Whilst I expect most of these iPads are personally owned the culture in many businesses with these new devices is we won’t invest but feel free to Bring Your Own Devices and use them.
Taking into account these two reasons its hard to see how Apple will fail making the iPad the final winner. It has the volume and are being used for work whether the business likes it or not.
Does Google care? Google, until they purchased Motorola, was not really in the hardware business, yes they had dabbled but that was just to give hardware suppliers something to aspire to in terms of quality and I expect that’s what they are doing again with the rumored Google Tablet.
In the end Google’s offering is more to do with their Google Apps for Business, not the operating system (Android) or the hardware, they have a well rounded product offering email on your own domain, document sharing, voice communication, social integration and a multitude of 3rd party Apps available to bolt onto their core services, even better is that most Google Apps can be delivered via the browser meaning Google doesn’t care what the hardware or operating system is, now or in the future as long as it has an Internet connection and a good browser.
Apple has iCloud, it offers the same sort of services as Google but currently only at a personal level it has no formal business type collaboration, sharing, communication or easy central administration. These issues need to be dealt with for iCloud to be fully embraced by the business community.
However, Apple know this and I am sure it’s been their plan all along, no full frontal attack on business, lets face it the doors of IT have long been guarded by the likes of MS and UNIX a tough door to get through, but if you let the masses take the basic product into business it becomes like the horse in the Trojan Wars an attack from within.
iCloud now seems to be their push, it featured on the packaging of the ‘New iPad’ and the new version of iTunes is rumored to further integrate iCloud.
So will the iPad win the Business tablet War, it has already and I think it will continue to do so even with reinforcements from the Android hardware brigade. Does this give Apple access to the deliver the business services on the hardware, they’ve not won the war but they certainly have a good point man.