Convention Center saves $50k deploying iPads & FileMaker solution

Here’s a useful case study on how the city of Austin’s Convention Center team have used iPads to replace their old paper folders. It’s yet another example of the consumerisation of the information technology departments.

The city of Austin’s Convention Center waves goodbye to over-sized, overstuffed paper binders by deploying iPads and developing custom apps with FileMaker Go.

via How the Austin Convention Center saved $50,000 by deploying iPads and Filemaker Go | TabTimes.

This paragraph in the post specifically caught my attention:

In previous iterations, the organization attempted to use Windows-based tablets by Motion Computing and Samsung’s Q1 device. Both proved too cumbersome. A second attempt at mobilization using Dell’s Windows Mobile Axim Pocket PC also fell apart. “There were too many steps involved in turning on the device and using it,” Moore explained.

There’s such pent-up demand for mobilised strategies in enterprise. Since the days of the Compaq iPad (and before), organisations have been trying to implement mobile strategies, but as the chap in this piece points out, it’s always been a little bit too difficult for anyone but the most committed.