From commuters reading their morning papers on their iPads to the latest devices being displayed at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, tablet computers are certainly hard to miss at the moment.
While businesses are keen to keep up with technological developments, the Enterprise Tablet Market is still finding its feet. However, it seems that there is a fragmentation of deployment already, with the Playbook touted as the potential winner in the MIS
and internal Enterprise App market, and the iPad currently triumphing in the client facing world.
In the investment banking domain, in particular, many banks have already released client facing Apps for the iPad, servicing the demand from information hungry clients. Some have even broached Management Information Apps for the enterprise.
But with very few having looked beyond this to date, the entire industry is at the bottom of this steep curve towards full tablet utilisation. Are the Banks missing a trick here?
Well the clear answer is yes. In a world beyond the front office, if clear and precise information were available on a tablet App, alongside smart collaboration tools allowing direct chat or even video conference with the relevant team member, required actions
could be accelerated: which could be make or break in a market operating on real-time decisions.
Most that I talk to in the City are agreed that tablet computing could, with a clearly thought-out solution, show real benefit in the investment banking space, but only when viewed in a holistic manner, linking the mobility factor into the core operating technology
strategies; and of course with one eye always on security.