Tablet PCs are enabling cloud based solutions

Small and mid-sized businesses (firms with less than 999 employees) continue to strive to regain their place in a troubled economy. Recent AMI research indicates that SMBs who have embraced mobility generated 40 percent higher revenue growth over the last 12 months compared to those who did not. As the mobile workforce trend continues, mobile devices, including tablet PCs, will play an integral part in supporting these employees.

Until recently, smartphones and notebooks have been the primary tools to process information wirelessly. Tablets are quickly stepping in as a complementary and capable device. But worldwide SMB tablet penetration remains low, about 3 percent, and still has a long way to go before becoming a mainstream IT asset.

"SMB tablet adoption has been highly fragmented across industries," says Michael McDonald, Sr. Associate of Worldwide SMB Sizing for AMI-Partners. "We see the strongest interest in professional services, healthcare, hospitality, and the media businesses. The early adopters realize the intrinsic value in having a highly mobile device that enables users to immediately access data, process information, and respond accordingly. Firms that have embraced tablets are also increasingly moving additional resources to the Cloud, increasing the utility of the tablet."

A recent AMI study has shown that firms with tablets use SaaS applications 20 percent more compared to those without. As a content consumption device the use of productivity suites and document collaboration tools is especially high in tablet firms. Hosted document collaboration usage amongst tablet users is more than double that of non-tablet SMBs, while hosted productivity suite use is nearly 50 percent higher. This steady move and reliance on Cloud infrastructure and applications have put pressure on IT networking resources, namely bandwidth. The increased load on networks has led, in part, to tablet firms increasing their bandwidth speeds, which are now over 10 percent higher than firms without tablets.

"SMB adoption is expected to accelerate as broadband speeds increase and heightened competition drives prices down. We expect average prices to drop nearly 50 percent by 2013," says McDonald. "The tablet PC has almost limitless potential in the SMB space where the device can entrench itself as a valuable resource essential to the on-the-go businessman. The ability of manufacturers, software providers and service providers to adapt to the changing demands of business users will be critical to future success."