Apple’s iPad is seeing wide deployment in the big Fortune 100 companies, and Android tablets are ‘bizarre’, just two quiet take aways from last night’s record-breaking financial call.
“Today, over 80% of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65% in the [previous] quarter,” said CFO Peter Oppenheimer. “Some recent examples include JPMorgan Chase, Cardinal Health, Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, Sears Holdings and DuPont.”
The iPhone is also holding up in the enterprise, with 88 of the Fortune 100 and almost 60 percent of the FT Europe 100 firms on board.
But Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook made special mention of those Android-powered iPad ‘killers’ which are attempting to wedge their way into the market.
“There’s not much out there as you know. There are two kinds of groups today (in the market) — the ones using a Windows-based operating system. They’re big, heavy and expensive. Weak battery life. Need keyboard or stylus. From our point of view, customers aren’t interested in that.
“Then you have the Android tablets. The variety shipping today, the OS wasn’t designed for a tablet — but Google said this. So you wind up having the size of a tablet that’s less than reasonable. Or one that’s not even a real tablet experience. It’s a “scaled-up smartphone” – that’s a bizarre product in our view. Those are what is shipping today. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, some enormous percentage are going to pick the iPad. We have no concern there.
“In terms of next generation. There’s nothing shipping yet. So I don’t know. “Today they’re vapor.” However, we’re not sitting still. We have a huge first-mover advantage. And a huge user advantage from iTunes to the App Store. Huge number of apps and an ecosystem. We’re very confident entering into a fight with anyone.”
And even if the tablets do improve, Apple revealed another secret weapon last night — a shady $3.9 billion strategic investment in components….an AAPL-backed guarantee that all those iPad killers are dead before they are born.
