First came the consumer wave of tablet users, now it’s the turn of small business. Almost 75 percent of small businesses plan to mark 2012 with a tablet — odds on an iPad. “The iPad, just in the consumer market, is synonymous for ‘tablet’ in the business market,” new research finds.
Some 73 percent of businesses employing under 1,000 workers are considering buying a tablet, according to retail research firm NPD Group. A smaller portion — 54 percent — of companies with less than 50 employees also plan to purchase an iPad. The average tablet purchase will be $21,000 in 2012, researchers found.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took the reigns from co-founder Steve Jobs, has apparently done wonders warming up the frosty relationship corporate giants have had with the tech giant. The company now boasts 93 percent of Fortune 500 companies now used iPads and iPhones. That’s a huge difference from the days when BlackBerries had the inside track for corporate purchases and Jobs regularly annoyed CEOs with his prickly and confrontational manners. Now, regularly, we read of Lowe’s buying tablets for its workers, airlines purchasing iPads for cockpit crew and countless small businesses jettisoning their PC laptops in favor of the Apple tablet.
With nearly two-thirds of small business adopting the iPad, the only question is what is the remaining 25 percent waiting for?
