Tablets coming to your office this year
Half of CIOs will buy tablets for their companies in 2011...
Tablet devices, including Apple's iPad, are being used by businesses more than was previously thought, according to a report published by Morgan Stanley.
Researchers at the financial services firm forecast that tablet shipments could reach 100 million by 2012, with tablets proving more successful than first predicted and outperforming many expectations of enterprise take-up.
Introduced to the market in the first half of last year, tablet devices hit 20 million in sales in 2010. Researchers at Morgan Stanley believe increased enterprise tablet use will result in even greater sales.
Nine months after the iPad was released, Apple reported that 80 per cent of Fortune 100 companies had either deployed or were piloting the tablet device and 67 per cent of CIOs surveyed by Morgan Stanley said they expected to incorporate tablets into their networks this year.
Tablet sales, led by Apple's iPad, are forecast to reach 100 million by 2012, according to research by Morgan Stanley
Photo: Apple
The study also said 51 per cent of CIOs expected to purchase tablets for their employees in the coming year, with 21 per cent having already done so. According to the report, businesses are using tablets for a broad range of tasks including general productivity, sales, management and healthcare.
Apple's iPad was highlighted in the report as being particularly attractive to business users as the iOS operating system has "several important enterprise security and management features that have enabled the strong adoption in corporate environments".
The research also found that the way people are using tablets is changing, with more people employing tablets for content creation where previous usage was largely restricted to emailing, gaming and web browsing.
Growth in the tablet market could have knock-on effects in other areas of the tech market, with analyst Gartner attributing weak PC sales to an increased take-up in tablets. Now, researchers at Morgan Stanley forecast that tablets will reduce PC market growth by three percentage points in 2011.
The Morgan Stanley report also predicted that Apple and Samsung are the most likely to benefit from increased tablet sales because tablets form a core element of their business strategies. In contrast, AMD, Dell, Lexmark and Ricoh were highlighted by the research as companies that may lose out from growth in the tablet market.