Whether adding panache to sales calls or eliminating paper in the boardroom,
the mighty portable tablets are gaining corporate ground quickly.
BY MARIA KOROLOV
software applications—the ERP and customer
relationship management systems, Microsoft
Office and anything else the employees need
to use. The device also connects to Microsoft
Exchange and Skype.
Wolfe bought the 16-gig iPads with WiFi and
3G, and even with warranties and cases, they
were still much less expensive than laptops,
she says.
Staff members love the portability and ease
of use, Wolfe adds. “They can just click it and
check their e-mails. With the laptops, you had
to worry about connections, but with the 3G,
they can be out in the middle of the Oklahoma
oil fields and still be connected.”
All documents are stored centrally and ac-
cessed through Citrix Client, so there are no
financial reports or customer records stored on
the iPad itself. “There’s nothing there,” Wolfe
says. “Nobody’s carrying around HR informa-
tion any more. If the iPad is stolen, they just
have their music and games and apps.”
The devices themselves can be password-
protected, and Citrix Client also requires a login
and password. In addition, individual applica-
tions such as accounting software have their
own user IDs and passwords, providing a third
level of security for the most sensitive data.
North Jersey Community Bank’s chairman
and CEO, Frank Sorrentino III, recently bought
two dozen iPads for the board and senior executives of the Englewood Cliffs-based financial firm, primarily to save paper during board
meetings.
It’s made the
management
team more
efficient.
—NORTH JERSEY COMMUNI TY BANK’S
SORRENTINO
“Our board package is anywhere from 200 to
300 pages,” Sorrentino says. “And 11 people attend the board meetings.” In addition, “it’s an
enormous amount of work to get that package
put together and indexed,” he says.
The iPads turn on instantly, and their light-
weight tablet form makes it easy to pass them
around or lay them flat and point to key items
on the screen.
