Its started... Enterprise iPad request

[dthmtlgod]

The city councils of several of the local cities around here have gone to iPads for the "paper savings".


The US Fortune 500 company I work for uses "Good for Enterprise". IMO, it's a neat solution. The company doesn't "issue" iPhones/iPads, but if you have a personal one you'd like to use, Good allows a safe way of letting that happen.

Got my access today. Utilizing Good. We are piloting both iPhone and iPad. Good service is much snappier than my BBY. Loving it so far.

 

[miles01110]

Let's see...who is more likely to have given the most thorough consideration to all the issues related to deploying iPads in a government organization? An employee who actually works in the department that will be using the devices? Or a well-known Apple-hater who thinks the iPad is totally worthless and constantly trolls an internet forum to spread FUD about the device?

Actually neither of them will likely have done any research or spent any time considering the issues related to deploying an iPad (or any other device) in a government agency. There are separate branches that do those kind of things and then either approve or disprove a device for agency-wide use.

 

[nateo200]

Well I'm not sure what snowballing means other than what urban dictionary told me...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Snowballing
I've never viewed the iPhone os as business friendly. I think it's more a personal device but if your company is looking for an excuse to get them with company money why not.

 

[Lunchb0x8]

Actually neither of them will likely have done any research or spent any time considering the issues related to deploying an iPad (or any other device) in a government agency. There are separate branches that do those kind of things and then either approve or disprove a device for agency-wide use.

Pretty much, we (the IT dept.) decide if iPads get rolled out to us.

Our executive decisions committee decides if anyone else gets them based on our recommendations.

Being local government, and in Australia, you might not know our exact process, but I can assure you, I know how things happen in my team!

 

[miles01110]

Our executive decisions committee decides if anyone else gets them based on our recommendations.

...which was pretty much exactly my point.

Being local government, and in Australia, you might not know our exact process, but I can assure you, I know how things happen in my team!

Great?

 

[Lunchb0x8]

EDIT: Can't be bothered starting something with someone who has no idea how my office runs.

Glad you have your opinions and voice them, but sometimes they aren't 100% spot on.

 

[saberahul]

CEO of fathers company announced last week that all U.S. sale staff will be getting iPad 3G's for customer purposes. That is about 40 staff members to begin with and after seeing how that goes on, they may move to more.

 

[Kobra]

I work in a government department, we have recently started rolling out the odd iPhone and hope to soon be using iPads for our On-Call work (I am an IT Admin).



Kobra, I understand what you mean, but it isn't always a case of yes it would be easy for you and your guys to use, but IT are looking at security things as well, as in, how easy it is to simply take an iPad and just get the data off it (unless you use a code to access it, and even then they aren't strong) some IT policies require Security on Power (BIOS passwords, HDD passwords and then OS passwords).

Your IT Guys aren't just trying to make life easier for them (I hope) they might just be looking out for what is in everyone's best interest.

One thing I can recommend, and it works at my work as well, is take it to the IT manager, ask if you can get one to trial (your budget pays for it of course)
and advise him that if it goes missing, any data is mined etc... you will wear it, this way he can see how it goes without worrying about losing his head over it.

I might have failed to mention that all our "sales and customer data" is stored centraly, we access that data with thin clients. There's no data stored on the laptop. The thin clients have their own strong passwords on top of the windows login. The iPad, in my mind, wouldn't be any different than the laptop.

My point about our IT-guys is that not one of them have worked outside of a IT-department before, they have absolutely no understanding of what our company does and have therefore no reference to what data needs to be secured and what doesn't. Example, we have a large database of names and addresses to every company in my country, that data is bought from a goverment company. The data is public and can be accessed by anyone through other means. Our IT-departmen has, for some reason, made the desision that that data is "secret" and protects it like if it concerned national security. They don't understand that it's no different to any public telephone book...

I've tried to discuss this wit our IT-Manager, but it's fruitless. She only answers with " let me desciede what's best for us". I know she's afraid, but that's not acceptable in a enterprise environment...

 

[Lunchb0x8]

I might have failed to mention that all our "sales and customer data" is stored centraly, we access that data with thin clients. There's no data stored on the laptop. The thin clients have their own strong passwords on top of the windows login. The iPad, in my mind, wouldn't be any different than the laptop.

My point about our IT-guys is that not one of them have worked outside of a IT-department before, they have absolutely no understanding of what our company does and have therefore no reference to what data needs to be secured and what doesn't. Example, we have a large database of names and addresses to every company in my country, that data is bought from a goverment company. The data is public and can be accessed by anyone through other means. Our IT-departmen has, for some reason, made the desision that that data is "secret" and protects it like if it concerned national security. They don't understand that it's no different to any public telephone book...

I've tried to discuss this wit our IT-Manager, but it's fruitless. She only answers with " let me desciede what's best for us". I know she's afraid, but that's not acceptable in a enterprise environment...

Yea, pretty much, see if there is a way to go above her without pointing out how closed-minded she is... it might help you to get some people higher up behind you.

 

[Streethawk]

I might have failed to mention that all our "sales and customer data" is stored centraly, we access that data with thin clients. There's no data stored on the laptop. The thin clients have their own strong passwords on top of the windows login. The iPad, in my mind, wouldn't be any different than the laptop.

My point about our IT-guys is that not one of them have worked outside of a IT-department before, they have absolutely no understanding of what our company does and have therefore no reference to what data needs to be secured and what doesn't. Example, we have a large database of names and addresses to every company in my country, that data is bought from a goverment company. The data is public and can be accessed by anyone through other means. Our IT-departmen has, for some reason, made the desision that that data is "secret" and protects it like if it concerned national security. They don't understand that it's no different to any public telephone book...

I've tried to discuss this wit our IT-Manager, but it's fruitless. She only answers with " let me desciede what's best for us". I know she's afraid, but that's not acceptable in a enterprise environment...

Kobra, you need Business Analysts like me. My role is to sit between IT and the Business and translate and negotiate between the two parties, trying to keep everyone happy. We've enough technical knowledge to understand the geekiest dev and enough people skills to communicate with senior business people. We also deliver small to medium sized projects. Bigger projects we leave to dedicated PMs.

Its an essential role, but sadly, one a lot of companies overlook.

 

[spammerhamster]

I bet you need to get mobileme accounts for each ipad then. so you can remote wipe them in case..

 

[TraceyS/FL]

I can only imagine how different our business would have been operating today had we not sold. The mobile tools at viable price points today just rock. We had the perk of being the IT guys and the decision guys.... Our sales team was often reluctant on the techno side though. Wonder how they'd feel today?

(we were computerized with totally custom software before our competitors owned computers, we had a total hands off system for various things and could run very lean on the office side of things... We embraced technology!)

 

[ginguar]

I bet you need to get mobileme accounts for each ipad then. so you can remote wipe them in case..

Nope remote wipes can be done by enterprise accounts, I have my gmail set up through on of the enterprise services (neuvasync) and they allow me to do a remote sync on either my ipad or iphone, not tested it yet but it's there and only costs $25 a year.

 

[Hammie]

I just noticed that there was a place on our network to activate iPads. However, they are not listed in the available mobile devices that you can order. Makes me wonder if we can activate our personal ones.

I was quite surprised that iPhones and iPad have been available on our networks since the security issue of the buffer overload. Our CSO is very hot on that subject, but they still got approved.

iPhones will not be used in sensitive government areas. Blackberries still rule that domain. There are not the same encryption tools for iPhone that are available on the Blackberry. And a few of the most popular companies do not plan on making an iPhone compatible app as they already have for the BBs.