The number of companies getting in line to challenge the iPad grows almost every week. And, while a few companies like RIM and HP are using their own OS to power their tablets, most of the iPad challengers are running Android. However, new data released by Good Technology shows that enterprise customers are choosing iPad over Android tablets by a huge percentage.
According to Good’s four-month tally of recent mobile device activations for its large stable of enterprise customers, tablets are taking a growing chunk of the activation pie, but among those tablet adopters the Apple iPad is grabbing 95% of all activations, while very few Android tablets are showing up in large companies. In fact, iPad activations actually surpassed Android smartphone activations in the enterprise in recent months, according to the Good data. Take a look at the chart below.
Good Technology has been an enterprise mobile stalwart since the mid-2000s when it helped many companies securely deploy and manage Palm Treo smartphones. In recent years, Good has shifted its software toward iPhone and Android smartphone deployments. It can manage both types of devices, as well as most other mobile platforms, and it can manage both IT-deployed devices and customer-owned devices. Enterprises that want tight control over their mobile data rely on companies like Good to help bridge the gap between traditional IT best practices and modern consumer-driven mobile devices. Good’s customers include 182 of Fortune 500 companies and 49 of the Fortune 100. It’s sometimes called “BlackBerry BES for the rest of us.”
It’s interesting to note that while Android continues to gain market share in the overall U.S. mobile market, it’s actually been slipping a bit among U.S. enterprises in recent months, according to Good’s data.
As for the tablet picture, John Herrema, Good’s Senior VP of Corporate Strategy at Good Technology, said, “Roughly half of the iPads we activated in this quarter were for the financial sector.” The chart below shows the breakdown of deployments across different industries.
Good also provided some additional commentary on the
In general, iPads are being deployed as a complementary “+one” device, not as an outright laptop or PC replacement. Key use cases for the iPad in Financial Services and Healthcare center on deployment as a laptop alternative, but not full-time replacement, for users who are heavy content consumers and/or presenters, but not heavy content creators. Examples of such users include executives, sales and client services staff, insurance agents and adjusters, and doctors. We are seeing proactive deployment in hospital settings as an outright replacement for “computers on wheels” and legacy tablet form factors. There is increasing interest among our customers with significant retail and/or field operations to use tablets for a variety of “in store” and field service applications. This includes not only customers from the Wholesale & Retail sector, but also customers in Financial Services, Communications, and Energy & Utilities that have significant retail and/or field service operations. Based on feedback from our customers, we’re seeing a greater tendency for iPads to be purchased and deployed proactively on both a BYOD and company-owned basis. This contrasts with the overall deployment model for iPhones and Android smartphones, where BYOD is the more dominant approach overall.
I’ll throw out one last chart from the Good data trove. It’s the top 10 devices that are activated on Good’s enterprise network.
This was originally published on TechRepublic.
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