Parliamentarians in Western Australia demanded a trial of Apple’s tablet computer, waging the kind of epic battle between users and the IT department that happens in companies around the globe.
The lawmakers it so badly 15 of them threatened “industrial action” if iPads were not allowed on the list of devices for their laptop allowance after being told by the ICT gurus that the device did not yet meet existing IT infrastructure or security standards.
The politicos, however, had more power than the average Dilbert:
“We told them, ‘If you don’t give it to us, we will turn around and pass a law so you will give it to us!’ Then we refused to fill in the form for new laptops until they included the iPad as an option,” Andrew Waddell told ITNews in a detailed report.
So the IT department relented. The politicos love the iPad — just like their fellow lawmakers from Italy to the U.S. who have been adopting them faster than you can yay or nay.
“Even Steve Jobs wasn’t sure who the iPad was created for. I can tell you this: iPads were made for parliamentarians,” said Andrew Waddell.
But the iPad trial has proved one big ‘headache’ for the tech team.
Turns out the iOS platform and Safari browser are incompatible with some of the websites (and iPad perusers viewed incomplete information), so lawmakers then started demanding parliament’s IT department redo these websites. Then there were more compatibility problems with document formats and security issues (the lawmakers using DropBox) and so on.
So in the end, who won the iPad parliament trial?
Rod Bickers (nomen est omen?) CIO of Department of Premier and Cabinet says: “Does it replace the laptop? Anecdotally, so far I would say it doesn’t.”
We doubt, however, that the parliamentarians are going to give up the iPads now that they’ve got their hands on them.
Via IT News
