The iPad.. A Businessman's Replacement for the Laptop?

You’ve taken the plunge and invested in an iPad. So, is it possible to ditch your laptop for business trips or even work itself? Inc. Magazine teams up with COO's and CEO's worldwide to share with readers their picks for Losing the Laptop.

• Joe Keller, president and COO of Motivaction, a performance-improvement marketing company based in Minneapolis, says he relies on several apps that have allowed him to use his iPad almost exclusively. Pages and Numbers are two of them," Keller says. "I'm able to do a lot of Word document work on Pages and spreadsheet work on Numbers as part of the general rhythm of the business day. I'm not printing anymore. I'm just reading and editing right on the iPad." Keller also uses GoodReader to view /PowerPoint presentations and iAnnotate to make comments on PDF files. "If I'm looking at a pdf document like a contract or a brochure I can actually make comments on it and forward it to someone else who will get the highlighted version."

• Steven Holtzman, COO of West Coast Aerial Photography in Los Angeles, says he can sometimes be flying with no Internet connection for up to seven hours at a time. For him, Instapaper has been the best iPad app he has purchased. "It lets me flag articles and long emails to read later and…has really been a phenomenal help for staying updated," he says.

If you want to move beyond merely accessing files and would like to get your hands on your actual desktop applications when away from your main computer, there are even ways to do that.

• "The best tool I've yet found is from Lenovo," says Rob Enderle, an expert on the Focus networkEnderle Group."Cloud client allows you to run virtually any desktop Windows-based application on an iPad, secure the iPad, and partially manage it. You may also be able to use KACE Tools from Dell to manage the iPad. Both showcase that the best companies to help make an iPad work like a PC in business are those that regularly deploy PCs in businesses."

• Another option for remotely accessing a desktop is the Citrix Receiver for iPad app. "[It] makes it easy for iPad owners to take their virtual office with them on the go," says Mark Fidelman, general manager of the Americas for enterprise solution provider Harmon.ie and expert on the Focus network. "One simple touch gives iPad owners secure access to all of their corporate Windows applications and desktops, making it easy to work from anywhere, while still enjoying the great user experience they bought an iPad for in the first place."

Will using the latest and greatest apps let you give up your laptop altogether? The experts polled for this article generally think not, although they say it comes pretty close as a replacement, and even does things the laptop can't.

So, the jury is still out on this one.