iPads in corporate environment

PR.

PR.

PR.

Associate
Joined
29 Mar 2005
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620
Location
Bedford, England
I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with setting up and using iPads (or even iPhones) in a corporate environment.

I'm interested in how Apps are handled, and providing storage access to apps etc.

Theres been a thought around the IT dept, we could replace our expensive laptops with decent desktops and issue iPads to users for when they go out and about.
 
Well...

  • If I was to have 70 ipads, is there an easier way to activate them all?
  • Can I apply settings to all the iPads like Wifi access codes, and VPN settings
  • What about Apps, do I use the same itunes account with all of them and just buy an app once?
  • How do you provide a storage area for users to send and retrieve documents?

Was just interested if anyone had gone through such a roll out.
 
My work phone is an iPhone 3GS. It was very much up to me to set it up though and run it through my own iTunes account. I haven't tried anything too complex but it handles corporate e-mail and connects to our wifi just fine.

I wouldn't recommend iPads as laptop replacements though. You'll never replace MS Office with anything satisfactory.
 
Consideration should also be given to security, controlling content on iPads and corporate access/home access issues etc..

We're discussing this at work at the moment with users bringing their iPads in from home and accessing corporate data. One person being the IT Operations director...
 
Yer we have about 40-50 iPhone 3G-4 going around, and we've not really done much with them beyond setting up Exchange email, contacts, and calendars. Users can do what they like in regards to syncing, apps etc. and not had many issues beyond them getting dropped, run over, dropped down the loo. When they're lost we can remote wipe them and the same should be possible on the iPad

A standard 16Gb iPad 2 3G would be cheaper than the ultra mobile laptops we've looked at. Laptops we've seen with 3 year on site warranty, decent processor, ram, dock, monitor, stand we've ended up at around £1200-£1500 each. We've tried to cut corners in the past and they always get thrown back at us as they are too slow. General feeling is when they are out they only really go through emails and occasionally use the web (and our intranet), and outline documents they send to secretaries to work on.
 
Personally I would wait until the corporate features mature, particularly with an eye on iCloud because the current system is clunky at best. They've only just started offering volume purchases of apps in the UK.

If they don't offer some kind of cloud service to manage corporate iPads in the field then they deserve to lose the market to somebody else.
 
Thanks for those Turbo-G

We are thinking the iCloud and iOS5, we might try and get a couple of units to test and see what users think.
 
No problem. I imagine iCloud and the integration with iOS5 will transform how the devices would be potentially managed also, which can only be a good thing.

With regards to app sharing etc, I guess it would make sense for the administrator to download the apps centrally, and for the apps to be re-downloaded for free on each of the other devices. I imagine iCloud will make this even more easier as the devices would get updated automatically when the administrator downloads a new app.

The user can still log into the app store with their own personal iTunes account to download apps for private use also.
 
We've got a handful of iPhone & iPods and haven’t had much to do with them (except for Exchange) as they’re all with senior staff (and they bought them from their own budgets).

The biggest battles I had with them was trying to get them to not use their own personal, pre-existing iTunes accounts and trying to stop them linking their company credit cards to their iTunes accounts. iTunes gift cards are a great solution! Another problem is trying to ensure they’re kept up-to-date, but we’ve left that one with the IT Director as they don’t want to hand their shiny toys over!
 
Just as an additional point, I do believe that there is a limit of 5 iOS devices that you can download the same application too for free. So hopefully for your roll out to work apple would implement some kind of volume licensing.
 
iPads are excellent - iTunes on enterprise environment PCs is a massive no-no... next think you know you have people storing MP3s and Movies on the LAN and the company becomes liable for piracy... it's a very bad situation to get into and I'd strongly advise against it. If they want an iPad I tell them to buy it themselves and use their home PC. Connecting them to work PCs is strictly banned.
 
We have 60 iPhones. Setup hasn't bee an issue. We have a couple of iPads connected to Exchange (one is my own personal one) and again no problems.

Secure VPN support, remote wipe and minimal support overhead. Sounds good to me.
 
Sadly we've never been allowed to restrict iTunes use, and we have a few people with music and videos on the network drives. It's funny as some will sync at home without issue, others will want to sync on work machines, and then we have users who never sync at all, just last week we had an iPhone 3G back still running the original iOS that it shipped with in 2008!
 
PR. said:
just last week we had an iPhone 3G back still running the original iOS that it shipped with in 2008!
Click to expand...

If it works why touch it. Also we have iTunes rolled out over 5000 workstations without a problem ;) Locked down to certain content and all profile info stored in their roaming profile. Yes, people can open iTunes then plug their iPhones in sync and do what they want but music stored on their account is a no-no.
 
Be really careful as anything illegal kept on work machines will potentially leave your work directly liable for them. Music and videos on the LAN are a definite no no.
 
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