Midsize Enterprise Summit: CIOs Talk iPads

In a keynote presentation at MES on Monday, Carl Claunch, vice president and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, said that the richness of the mobile application experience is beginning to change the behavior of employees and clients alike, bringing them more fully into the enterprise application environment and convincing them to rely more completely on the intelligence and data present within the applications. The drawbacks, though, include factors that make life more difficult for the IT department.

"The application development environment is more complex for mobile applications," Claunch said, "and the application management environment is still immature compared to the traditional application delivery infrastructure."

The major piece of infrastructure concerning the CIOs at the breakfast table wasn't lack of management on the back end, but lack of Adobe Flash on the iPad itself. Asked about Apple's insistence that HTML 5 would take over from Flash as a programming mechanism for animated controls and presentations, there was scattered laughter, with the CIO of a midsize manufacturing firm comparing the effort to Microsoft's push for Silverlight. "They're more than a little late to the battle," he said, "and we see how well that's worked out for Microsoft."

With that reservation, though, the CIOs all pointed to application development and delivery tools in place for the Apple iPhone that they believe will make integrating the iPad into their environment possible. Microsoft SharePoint and Citrix Receiver are each in use by many of the organizations represented, and were seen as convincing evidence that the iPad can be brought into the corporate fold effectively, if not easily. Despite the difficulties, the source of the push for iPad adoption makes the process a requirement for the executives at the table.

"My CEO is already asking about it," said one service-industry CIO to nods of recognition around the table. Specific capabilities aside, a sleek, sexy design and high desirability factor among executive leadership means that the iPad is poised to follow its smaller i-siblings into the enterprise.

For the CIOs at MES East, the fashion for the iPad represents a new challenge, but one that, based on the collection of iPhones that came out of pockets to check e-mail after the plates were cleared, they're ready to meet.

Curtis Franklin is a freelance journalist based in Gainesville, Fla.