I am seeing that in my company, which up to recent times never considered deploying Apple product.
We are now testing the iPad for our field technicians (which will replace Windows XP laptops).
With the iPads, our technicians will be able to easily access technical manuals, parts catalogs, email, technical bulletins, etc. They will also be able to receive, dispatch and close service tickets while using GPS to get to their next service call. They will also be able to access service histories and other data to help them resolve the issue.
In my opinion, we are only in the beginning of the tablet revolution. While the current version of iPad does not have all the features of a laptop, it is only a matter of time before future generations of tablets render the laptop obsolete. Soon the standard laptop will seem as antiquated as the typewriter.
What advantage does a tablet have over a laptop in the office environment? I can see where people in the field would want a “big smart phone/powerful PDA” type device, but what’s the point for a guy like me who leaves his laptop at the office and prefers to just use his phone when out? Tablets look like a pain in the ass to lug around compared to smart phones, and I don’t understand what I would gain in the office that a laptop probably couldn’t do better. They do have long battery life, but if you hacked a laptop down to the computing power/storage capabilities of a tablet, you’d probably get similar battery life as well. I think the laptop isn’t going to be killed by the tablet any more than the laptop killed the desktop. If anything, I’d worry about phones obsoleting tablets.