IPads in your Enterprise Environment

What an exciting meeting. Nothing gets a bunch of techno geeks going like a new gadget. OK, so they're not so new, but the IPad is working its way into our business environments and we need to be ready for them.

Our topic of discussion was "IPads in your enterprise network". We were fortunate to have Bob Akridge (Netgain Technologies), Pat Moore (Netgain Technologies), Rodney Daugherty (Digital Solutions) and Eric Coble (Digital Solutions) join our discussion.

Gladys Smith's firm (McMasters Keith Inc.) is actually using IPads as laptop replacements,while most of the the rest of us are using them as convenience tools in addition to laptops.

Various applications were discussed that all seem to have their pros and cons. Some of the apps that were working for members of our group were the new Citrix Receiver (4.2.3), LogMeIN, iTap RDP, Cisco AnyConnect and the VPN tool withing the IPad. Check the App Store for info on these tools.

We also discussed the need to create a "NO iTunes" policy in our firms to prevent confusion of personal vs. business files on your firms equipment.

Other great tools we discussed were DropBox (which give you 2GB of free space) and Evernote which will sync files between computers and devices. Both great tools.

Eric (who previously worked with Apple) warned us to be careful of "jailbroke" devices. Apple may refuse you service and may violate your support agreement if you take them a "jailbroke" device. Many users may not realize their devices have been jailbroke. Watch out for the that "cool app" your brother-in-law or co-worker showed you. Check the web site carefully and be sure you know how to restore your device OS should you need to take your device in for service.

Bob Akridge says his firms uses Bomgar (http://www.bomgar.com/) for remote support and actually lets you remote to devices as well as computers to provide end user support. Very cool.

And thanks to Debie Bramble (Dean Dorton Allen Ford) for pointing out that Exchange (2003 SP2 and up) will allow you to force the pass code feature on any device trying to sync up emails. Great way to take that burden away from your end users. Mark French (Louis T. Roth) quickly used his IPhone to find the links. Here they are: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.01.staybetterconnected.aspx and for Exchange 2010 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997929.aspx. Thanks Mark French (Louis T. Roth) for finding the links.

And finally a couple of really cool apps discussed were a "Screamer" app that helped an end user recover a stolen device and my personal favorite this month is Hungry Shark. OK, not actually work related, but a great stress reliever (if you think of the swimmers as end user, annoying salesmen or the neighbor with the barking dog).

Submitted by: Bob Daugherty
IT Director at DMLO

First Post

This blog will attempt to give not only the members of ITMA information about our monthly meetings, summaries of those meetings, but also commentaries about equipment, cool tech stuff and what's going on in the CPA and Law firm industries (as well as a few other industries represented in our group).

We are open to anyone who has an interest in our group and attending our meetings as a guest or joining our membership. There is never a cost of membership, but our meetings are typically lunch meetings and there is usually a cost (currently $10) for attendance to cover cost.

Watch for more information in the next couple weeks.