The next time you're issued a new company computer, you may well get an iPad Pro and detachable keyboard. Or a new Surface Pro 4. Or one of any number of hybrid 2-in-1s from the likes of Dell, HP or Lenovo.
That's because more and more companies are rushing to embrace laptop/tablet combos for their workers, according to new research from both Forrester and IDC.
Just what's going on here? As Computerworld Senior Writer Lucas Mearian explains to Executive Editor Ken Mingis, companies are bucking the recent sales trends for tablets, which have lost some of their luster in recent years.
Sure, Apple's pushing its latest iPad Pro and iOS 11 as a perfect laptop replacement -- and, not coincidentally, pushing more Apple hardware into the enterprise. Microsoft, already a workplace mainstay, has been doing the same thing ever since the Surface line arrived in 2012. (And the arrival of Windows 10 in 2015 accelerated corporate adoption.)
So even as sales of consumer tablets over the next few years are expected to slow, the business-owned tablet market is expected to grow -- by 6.9% annually through 2022. That's largely because the hardware is now fast enough for most users and cheap enough for companies, there's a multitude of business-centric apps and users are finding 2-in-1s can deliver as much productivity as laptops, said Mearian.
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