Act now to avoid the Apple tablet apocalypse

I hate disruptive technologies. They’re antithetical to all that’s sane and stable in enterprise IT. So when I hear that one out of every five tech-savvy consumers is interested in buying the as-yet-unannounced Apple tablet device, I start to squirm a bit in my chair.

Assuming a third-quarter ship date, this fruity new wonder could prove to be the hottest item under the Christmas tree. And that means that, come January 2011, IT shops will be inundated with idiot users lobbying to hook their iPads/iSlates/iTablets (iBricks?) into the corporate network.

It’s an old story, one that traces its roots to the earliest days of the personal computing revolution. Back then, the more nefarious users would sneak their shiny new PCs into the workplace, prompting a near riot as colleagues and other departments clamored for equal consideration. Suddenly, guerrilla PC cells were popping up all over the place, forcing IT to waste literally millions of man-hours whipping these poorly thought-out devices into a semimanageable state.

I can see a similar tidal wave on the horizon with an Apple tablet. At first, users will sneak them into the office as companion devices. Before long, they’ll insist that IT support them directly by providing expensive docking cradles and proprietary keyboard/mice combinations — all so that they can ditch their carefully tested, enterprise-ready, company-provided desktop or laptop in favor of their shiny new toy.

All hell will break loose. First, IT will discover that these first-generation devices are buggy. Users will demand fixes to problems that shouldn’t exist, like poor Exchange Server integration or inconsistent VPN support. Then, as the buzz surrounding the new device fades, these now-overwhelmed IT shops will be faced with the task of picking up the pieces from the more important projects (server patching, infrastructure upgrades) they’d shelved to meet the relentless tide of tablet mania requests. It’ll be a real mess.

In case you think I’m overstating the threat, consider the iPhone. Almost immediately, first-generation iPhone users were turning in their clunky old Windows Mobile devices and petitioning to have their Apple gizmos accepted as standard-issue company phones. There was just one problem: The iPhone couldn’t talk to Microsoft Exchange Server, forcing IT shops everywhere to do cartwheels trying to work around this glaring limitation. Even the second-generation iPhone was revealed to claim to support Exchange security policies it did not, creating a hidden backdoor into corporate networks.

An Apple tablet device will be even more disruptive in that consumers will insist on using the new toy as their primary computing environments. This, in turn, will force IT shops to try to shoehorn their increasingly complex enterprise desktop computing stacks onto consumer-oriented devices that were never designed to support such workloads. Basically, it’s a recipe for disaster.

So what can IT do to thwart the coming Apple tablet-pocalypse? First, an outright ban is in order. Use whatever excuse you think carries the most weight. For example, claim that the devices are insecure, and that plugging them into the corporate network will compromise its integrity. Then seek to contain the situation by offering up an alternative tablet solution running the IT-supported and IT-approved Windows 7 operating system.

Though not as sleek or as sexy as the real deal, these Apple tablet imitators should be sufficient to placate the bulk of your tablet-infatuated user base. In fact, you may want to nip the situation in the bud by providing the squeakier wheels with their own faux tablets now, before the Apple iHysteria sets in.

And pay special attention to the higher-profile users in the executive suites. Seed them early on with their own prophylactic, Windows-based tablet alternatives. Because if just one of these individuals manages to pick up Apple’s latest fruity abomination — and brings it into the office — you’ll never be rid of the things.

This article, “Act now to avoid the Apple tablet apocalypse,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in mobile computing and Apple at InfoWorld.com.