iPad CRM? Seems Unlikely at Present

Oh, iPad! What will enterprise do with you? Will we see an outpouring of iPad CRM soon? Let’s take a look at the facts first…

There’s always a surge of excitement when a new computer-like device is released. Laptops are now so ubiquitous it’s difficult to imagine a time without them—much less a time when we felt cool for owning one. The same is true for cellular phones, and smartphones are following a similar trajectory. The iPhone was released not even three years ago, and in many metropolitan areas it’s as though everyone has them—and users are furthermore treating them as appendages, and seem lost without them.

All the aforementioned devices are tools changing the way we “do PC,” but for all the leisure that name implies, these devices were all quickly incorporated into the enterprise space. One reason, of course, is that the enterprise space is too big to pass up, but it also has to do with the convenience that laptops, iPhones, and the like afford in terms of business processes. No sooner had the iPhone been announced than Salesforce.com revealed plans to begin iPhone CRM, and their CRM competitors followed suit. Now iPhone CRM is expected with an implementation from about any vendor, and CRM vendors are besting one another by rolling out complex features.

Perhaps what is true of iPhone CRM will be true for iPad CRM in three years—but at present, it doesn’t seem like the device will be making the same impact in enterprise. Gartner released a report today concluding that in 2015, less than 10% of PCs used in enterprise will be touch-enabled. This makes sense, given that enterprise processes are heavily reliant on typing and text input (and workers are already familiar with keyboard usage).

Gartner’s findings don’t necessarily preclude a rise in iPad CRM, and those using established iPhone CRM applications can leverage those applications on the iPad as well. But we’ll probably have to wait and see if the device gains traction in enterprise before we see much iPad CRM—“iPad CRM” here referring to an application designed for the iPad, with special features that are not found in the vendor’s iPhone counterpart. Should the iPad’s prices drop, it could become enterprise-popular among sales members in the field, and then iPad CRM would be a certainty the way iPhone CRM is, but at present such distribution seems unlikely.

We’ll have to wait and see!

Tags: iPad CRM, Mobile CRM