[aric.catron]

I am an owner of a Playbook and iPad (original). I am currently working on a term paper for one of my business courses on applications of Tablet PCs in the business world.

Basically what I want to know is what you use your Playbook/iPad/XooM for. Specifically business/enterprise applications but any general use.

What device(s) has it replaced or supplemented that you regularly used to use for business or home activities?

What apps have you found particularly useful, time-saving, etc?

I will give personal examples: I am a fourth-year student focusing on accounting, financial management, and business administration. Since I got my iPad last year I have been able to slash the cost of books by getting as many of my course books in electronic format as possible.

The iPad worked well doing that, but was clunky in size (it was like a less-powerful laptop honestly.) But the Playbook has fit this situation perfectly - I can put it in my jacket pocket, have my books and notes and even copies of the instructor's powerpoints on hand, etc.

Prior to these two devices I used a laptop but constantly had problems with battery life, portability, etc.

I have synced my Blackberry Curve to my Google Calendar, and now with bridge that information is also on my Playbook at a touch. Most of my emails are through Playbook now as well. I use Dropbox for "cloud file transfer" - keeping my homework and papers on "the cloud" so that I can pull them up on the iPad or Playbook and review/work on them, email them to the instructor whenever I want, etc.

Nothing formal guys - all I really want is just your generic take on the uses, as well as downsides, of these devices in enterprise solutions.

[_StephenBB81]

I am a Manufacturers Sales Rep/territory manager, as well as specific product line specialist as my primary career, I do financial services, (mutual funds, financing, insurance) as a secondary vacation replacement career

So far my tablet has not replaced anything.
I still travel with 2 blackberry's 2 Laptops, and a DSLR camera.

What the laptop has changed is the frequency in which I used laptop 1, laptop 1 contains my Lotus notes and 10GB of excel, word, powerpoint files, and is locked down by company rules, the playbook has allowed me to transfer about 8GB of the files for use on the playbook leaving me opening my laptop1 only for lotusnotes use.

My Playbook allows me to do warehouse inventory in my dealers warehouses, in their customers wearhouses/ shops, as well as do inventory of competitor products, I can have pricing pulled up while I am at 30,000ft talking to someone, or 5000ft under ground, no cell service or wifi available, allowing me to provide more detail on a larger screen right away, but the tablet fits in my pocket so I can be hands free climbing a ladder into a truck/trailer, warehouse mezzanine or fire escape.

I can sit in a board room and plug my playbook into the projector via microHDMI and throw up my excel files, or email or a ppt on the screen to get my point across quickly but I have nothing too obtrusive on the desk during the meeting,

For apps, I have none yet business related, my expense form is very specific so no apps have replaced it yet, I use a flash website for quick margin calculations across multiple channels, or working backwards from a desired retail back to each channel partners requirement, if there was an app for that I'd download it. Word/excel is 90% of my business use.

I don't use the cloud, because I am often in areas with "clear skys"( no radio signals )

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[aric.catron]

I am a Manufacturers Sales Rep/territory manager, as well as specific product line specialist as my primary career, I do financial services, (mutual funds, financing, insurance) as a secondary vacation replacement career

So far my tablet has not replaced anything.
I still travel with 2 blackberry's 2 Laptops, and a DSLR camera.

What the laptop has changed is the frequency in which I used laptop 1, laptop 1 contains my Lotus notes and 10GB of excel, word, powerpoint files, and is locked down by company rules, the playbook has allowed me to transfer about 8GB of the files for use on the playbook leaving me opening my laptop1 only for lotusnotes use.

My Playbook allows me to do warehouse inventory in my dealers warehouses, in their customers wearhouses/ shops, as well as do inventory of competitor products, I can have pricing pulled up while I am at 30,000ft talking to someone, or 5000ft under ground, no cell service or wifi available, allowing me to provide more detail on a larger screen right away, but the tablet fits in my pocket so I can be hands free climbing a ladder into a truck/trailer, warehouse mezzanine or fire escape.

I can sit in a board room and plug my playbook into the projector via microHDMI and throw up my excel files, or email or a ppt on the screen to get my point across quickly but I have nothing too obtrusive on the desk during the meeting,

For apps, I have none yet business related, my expense form is very specific so no apps have replaced it yet, I use a flash website for quick margin calculations across multiple channels, or working backwards from a desired retail back to each channel partners requirement, if there was an app for that I'd download it. Word/excel is 90% of my business use.

I don't use the cloud, because I am often in areas with "clear skys"( no radio signals )

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Great answer, this is the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear. I'm not looking for "OMG the playbook/ipad/xoom is great because" - I'm looking for realistic answers of what you have found it can or cannot do. Thank you very much for your input!

[jesse_h]

This topic may have some useful info for you:

http://forums.crackberry.com/f222/an...e-work-615009/

[NewUser5001]

I use a spreadsheet program to keep track of rents collected each month.
Tenant names and unit numbers are listed vertically and the months are listed accross the top. When they pay, the amount is input into the open cell. At the end of the month the total of the month column has to agree with the bank deposits.

[thedark722]

I'm a Solutions Architect in the electronic communications arena. I'm constantly out sitting and consulting with clients. I use my playbook to keep organized notes, ppt presentations and it works pretty well as a conversation starter / 'warm-up the room' tool.

I also use it to help do ROI calcs on pre-built spreadsheets as well as using a couple of different apps to do process mapping and solution design brainstorming.

Recently I've started using SSTG to help with demo scripting for hands-on demo's.

Definitely use it for communication (I'm a touch screen addict and definitely prefer the playbook over my 9700 for email and bbm), even if I do look a bit silly taking it out to pop a quick note over to my colleagues.

And like most others, I use it to kill time on business trips and commuting, watching movies, tv shows, listening to audio books, etc.

[jsfalk]

As a business commuter, it has replaced my Sony Reader. It has not yet replaced my music player, but it might when there is an Ogg decoder, although 16 gigs may not be enough... haven't decided yet.

What it does brilliantly, though, is allow me to view and manipulate BB downloads, particularly, spreadsheets. So what it's replacing is firing up my notebook and logging into the corporate email server.

The potential is there to replace my music player and it's already replaced my book reader. And eventually -- who knows?

[rustmonkey]

I'm a supervisor in a government office responsible for eligibility for welfare benefits; prior to getting my playbook, I mostly relied on Outlook and Excel (which now has a fair amount of functionality on the playbook) plus good old pen and paper. With my playbook, I now take all meeting notes on it and keep a fair amount of data regarding caseload balances and performance at my fingertips Aside from that, I now also have a place to store all the performance improvement articles I find on the web instead of simply printing them out and tossing them in a folder... Most recently, we experienced localized flooding in our office building and my tablet has been a god send as far as my organization and data/personnel tracking has been concerned as I can carry it with me easily from site to site (we relocated some personnel)... Now these are pretty much all things a laptop could do but the main point is the significantly increased portability and ease of use the playbook provides - I can be pulling up info or jotting down notes in the same amount of time it would have normally taken my laptop to come out of hibernation

[blackranger3d]

I'm a governement auditor (internal) and a real estate investor (land lord). Below are my uses, and answer to the OPS questions.


Uses

Business (mainly real estate)

• Google Calendar (all my dvices are up to date automatically)
• Spread Sheets (property analysis on the road)
• Prestations Power point (usually only property stuff)
• Meeting discussion points, I can pull up documents and share them
• Imeddiate photo up load of properties I�m reviewing

Personal

• Commuter entertainment (books, comics, tv shows, mags)
• Immediate photo up loads of family events, kids are so narcissistic they want to see the picture you took of them right now
• general surfing (phones are too small)

Devices Replaced

• Physical books, magazines, comics
• Personal Laptop (still have a work one)
• I still have a desktop for gaming, video, music editing, document creatation etc

Devices NOT Replaced

• basic pad and paper, while it is possible to type notes during meetings a basic pad and paper is still more efficient IMHO
• I do scan important meeting minutes to PDF

Apps (ipad)

Goodreader

• best reader of life, it has allowed me to view every doc file (and mp3) that I�ve thrown at it.
• An agent gave me a floor plan in Adobe Illustrator format (not sure why he didn�t have a PDF read to go) and I was able to view it (I was surprised)

Drop Box �

• Cloud - keep all my real estate info at my finger tips
• I could do this with my work data too but I don't want to deal with the confidentiality risks
• Client disputed a clause in our rental agreement. I was able to pull up a PDF of the signed contract and advise her that see was mistaken and show her the clasue.

Docs to Go

• office tools
• allows integration into dropbox)
• I don't create documents as much as I edit them (ie enter numbers on property analysis sheets

PowerOne FE

• powerful calculator that you can create/download scripts for.
• I have just about every financial / real estate calculation ready to go
• I can calculate mortgage payments based on various variables etc etc

Splash ID

• data vault

Navigon

• turn by turn navigation
• integrates with ipod so that it lower the playing music to give instructions

Kindle

• books

RE Confidentialty

To all those who put company data on personal devices (PB, IPAD whatever... DON'T.
IMHO the confidentiality risks aren't worth the potential benefits.

[jjrimfan]

Good Morning. I am a Pilot Plant & Commercialization Manager in a Research Park. The PlayBook has primarily allowed new functions that an iPad or laptop don't handle as well. The iPad is too big, and a laptop is something you don't open up while you're walking. I view the iPad as "showy", more devoted to size and toy apps, but light on instant access to business functions.

The functions I like on the PB are what I call "unexpected requests for information" on the spot. That is, rapid response to customer needs and background info "on the move". These include:

- spectacular pictures (from the camera) displayed in a large postcard format on a crisp high-colour screen, of our facility, almost in a tour format
- virtually instant access to spreadsheets, lease document samples, data, publicity materials, even while I'm walking through the buildings with a potential client; Windows Vista takes an embarassingly long time to boot
- rapid access to e-mail, calendar etc. over the BB Bridge to my Torch, no waiting, and securely, with very rapid re-link if I happen to leave the PB in my office
- rapid updates on weather information (building emergency functions) through a local public alert service, either on WiFi, or by tethered Torch if we stray into WiFi-sparse areas in the plant (the Internet Tethering works flawlessly and is established very quickly when needed)
- rapid access to government documentation by browser, tethered or WiFi, via Google, which works beautifully, and only slightly slower when tethered.

In all these respects, the PlayBook does exactly what was advertised, either out of the box or by careful task planning and learning on my part.

As a facilitator of Canadian technology development, I thought it was important to showcase a Canadian operating system, on a Canadian device, rather than support a leader. The device has a lot of growing to do, on the software side, but is more than adequate even in its early days. And the learning experience that RIM is going through will only make them stronger.

A RIM fan.

[mrwindow]

Im in the home performance and improvement industry. homesynergistics.com
What we do can be sometimes difficult to get across to to folks, so i use the PB as a sales tool. I show youtube videos to describe the process. It has a wow aspect as well as it alows me to look around while my prospects watch a couple 10 min videos.
In the future I will use it for pricing, pictures of completed jobs and the basics when software allows. CRM,calander,better docs to go, as well as all the funtionality we are waiting for between platforms.
At some point contract signing,powerpoint presentations,data entry, computations and project management will become necessary. I am optimistic and looking forward to all of this and more.

[Loquitur]

I'll take your "business users" liberally ... I work in a medical science field. I have science publications in pdf on my playbook, especially ones I intend on reading in the next week. I also have grant proposals in doc format that I'm currently reviewing, as long as too many comments aren't needed (real keyboard for that). i have a powerpoint presentation or two, for upcoming talks I plan on giving. I also have several spreadsheets I've created for simple stats and sample size calculations. i bring agendas and meeting notes with me on the PB instead of printing them out. I have dreams of a NotesPlus app, like on the iPad, as I hope to eventually take digital meeting notes and have them transferred over to One Note ... but that's not happening at the moment, as typing on this thing is painful.

[OnTopic]

I am a commercial photographer (mostly sports) with a group of freelance shooters who work for me. I am now keeping both my personal and business portfolio's on the PB for displaying to clients and potential clients. I used it for this purpose for the first time 2 weeks ago and we were able to land the job as a result.

BTW App developers there would be a LARGE market (IMHO) for a professional photo app. The photo viewer as supplied is sophomoric at best. Nothing in app world for working pros to showcase work. PM me to discuss!

I have also copied many of our standard contract PDF's as well as marketing PDF's to the PB and have them available to print on-site during client presentations without having to get into the laptop. I'd LOVE to see a PDF tool for editing PDF files on the PB so that changes to our contracts could be made on the PB and deals closed right from the PB. For those issues I still have to boot my laptop and get into Acrobat X

I'd love to see a GOOD credit card processor for the PB as some clients prefer paying on the spot or making deposits with credit cards. Square isn't available on ANY RIM platform and I have been told WON'T be. Intuit's software is ok but their reader sucks and they don't have PB support either so for now I have to use the PB browser to launch Intuit's portal to capture CC transactions. Not a great solution.

I'd love to see a good FTP program that would allow me to upload to our FTP servers from the road BUT seeing as the PB's usb port won't host an external "HD" (read that to be a CF card) the OS needs updating before the FTP is a big desire.

[wbray123]

There is also a thread on Business Use for Attorneys, last post about a week ago. Sorry, I don't know how to post a link.

[aric.catron]

Thank you guys for your answers - I have also been browsing the other posts relating to the subject as well. And to respond to the term "business users" - yes, it was meant to be a liberal application of the term - basically what do you use it for that is work related, if any at all, and what device.

Great responses all - the general consensus I get here, and other sites, is that no 1 tablet is perfect for work yet, and tablets are not quite ready to replace laptops, PCs, or smartphones, but they are making an excellent tool for bridging all of those devices together.