iPad: The new passion killer?

Gone are the days of waking up, turning to our loved ones and greeting their new day with a kiss. Instead, new research shows most of us reach over for our first hello of the day to the shiny new data spurting out of our iPads.

Research from cloud storage experts at Egnyte over Q4 2011, revealed some interesting statistics on when and how its application, which stores corporate data, was accessed by customers.The data shows that not only are we reaching for our morning coffee but now checking emails and accessing work documents as a matter of instinct, with a flourish of activity from as early as 6am.Egnyte’s focus on businesses and the fact it has no free customers, the data usage in this study effects business users, many of which also use their tablet devices for non-work browsing.This evidence shows that by giving the employee the correct business tools business are increasing the working day but the jury is out as to whether this is creating the productive workforce that many analysts predicted as the result of consumerization.Most notable was that two-thirds of the usage of iOS based devices (Apple iPhone/iPad) occurred during business hours (8AM-6PM). Further, iOS devices comprised 70% of overall usage, over double that of Android based devices (28%).Business users don’t take holidaysEgnyte’s focus on businesses and lack of a freemium customer base means that the data returned reflects use by business users who are paying customers, and not consumers. Holiday usage provides one of the more interesting data points. When looking at daily mobile usage for Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, Egnyte found use remained consistent with regular non-holiday weekends. Thanksgiving day was actually highest for a weekend at 2% of monthly usage (non-holiday weekends range from a low of 1.2% of traffic to a high of 2.1% of traffic).Tablet and mobile phone usage has surged, and our records show a 10-fold increase over the past 6 months, indicating that the business sector has not escaped this trend. The Pew Research Center released a study this week that indicates that the holiday season has produced a dramatic doubling in ownership of tablet devices amongst college graduates, growing to 31%. In addition with over 100 tablets introduced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics show, the trend to mass adoption of tablets becomes self evident.“Business people are using their tablets and phones everyday to get their jobs done, whether it’s a company supplied device or their own, mobile devices are a necessity,” said Vineet Jain, CEO, Egnyte. “Given that reality, companies need to embrace the new work paradigm and provide their users with fast, secure and scalable solutions that let them collaborate with their co-workers and vendors, no matter where they are. That’s where the hybrid cloud shines, providing fast behind the firewall access for office bound users, and the accessibility of the cloud when they are working remote.”January 31, 2012Netimperative