I am a recent apple convert, at least at home, still suffer (at work) with the MS world and a PC!
I recently received for my Bday (what a present) a 32Gb iPad with 3G.
I would like to see how I would begin to use my iPad for business, I'm looking for advice at some current apps or upcoming apps to wait for to help facilitate this.
I need to connect to the company server and be able to work with Word/Excel files as well as access Navision (ERP)
Or I need advice if I am trying to put a round plug into a square hole (PC)?
Thanks
Bob

Check out the Quickoffice and Dropbox apps. It's not the same as a laptop, but might give you some help.
Good luck.

Very wise getting a 3G iPad! I use mine quite frequently with LogMeIn Ignition for iPad. You can install it on your PC, and take complete remote touch control of it from your iPad (check out some Youtube videos of it if you are not familiar). I use this with my Mac, so I can remote connect back to it and work with specific applications right from my iPad. It works better than you'd expect. Same as above...it's not a laptop replacement, but it is pretty darn close, as long as you have an internet connection. More and more, I find myself less and less taking my laptop to client sites. All of my files are in Dropbox (as @hvaughan mentioned). I don't use a "My Documents" folder...I just use Dropbox. That way all of my files are accessible from my Macbook, iMac, PC, iPad and iPhone. it's a beautiful thing.

We are using the FREE app, RDP Lite, which works perfectly.

You wont be able to connect directly to your company network. I think you are going to need to get a good remote desktop app and use the iPad as a window to your "real" computer for much of what you list. Documents to Go is pretty good for excel, word, etc, but will only work with fairly simple spreadsheets and formatting with advanced Office features will be lost (shadows, 3d elements, etc).

It takes a lot of accommodation to fit the iPad into business life, but its doable. I think the iPad a LOT of room for improvement here.

Originally Posted by StarLog

We are using the FREE app, RDP Lite, which works perfectly.

If you take away price of RDP vs LogMeIn, there is no comparison. There is so much more functionality in LogMeIn (Mac & PC support, multiple monitors (I have 3 in my office connected to my Macbook Pro that I can just flip between on the iPad), etc.). If you're PC only (sounds like it), your version of Windows OS is supported, you dont need multiple monitor support, mouse dragging, etc., and price is an option, give RDP a try. Otherwise, on LogMeIn, you only pay for the iPad and iPhone clients...the desktop software is all free with a LogMeIn account.

Thanks to all for your replies/posts, this gives me a start!

Bob

Hi Rwsjreynolds! I’m in the same boat you are. I’ve been gradually coming back to Apple after being away for a long, long time (Apple IIe, original MAC). I started with the MacPro when Apple decided to use the Intel processor. I have my MacPro partitoned for both MAC and PC. I use the MAC side for iTunes and all photos and video things. They just do it better. I added the iphone leaving behind a strong alliance to the Palm products and now I have the iPad. I like you am trying to figure out its place in my life but in order to be truly useful to me it’s got to do some things I need in the PC world.
So here’s my early read on it. Outlook is handled very well with the Microsoft Exchange. It was serving well on the iphone but on the iPad the screen size makes it very doable for most email activities. I figure my usage will be split as follows: iphone 30%, iPad 50% and PC 20% (there’s just some things I need the laptop for because I’m an engineer and some attachments are CAD files). So email, contacts and calendar are basically the same on iPad vs. PC. I found an app called iMExchange that allows fairly seamless wireless syncing of the Task and Notes in your Outlook.
As far as the Office products, I believe you’re going to find it less seamless. I have bought and tried all the big Office apps for the iPad. QuickofficeHD, Documents to Go Premium, Office2 HD and Pages. Some have things that they do better than the others but there is not one program that works in my mind seamless with MS Office. Let’s start with Excel. I don’t believe spreadsheets will ever be the forte of touch screens. Creating and editing spreadsheets just don’t work due to the manipulation etc. Give me a keyboard and mouse any day. So I use Quickoffice (it reads MS 2007) to pull in the files and mainly just view them with minor data inputs. Same thing with the Powerpoint files. I basically either save them in PDF and transfer them to the iPad in its more compact format or in a pinch pull it up using either Quickoffice or Doc to go. Word processing is a different matter. Docs to go have more capabilities than Quickoffice but both are fairly limited in terms of functions. Heavily formatted documents do lose some of its functions in the transfer between PC and iPad. My problem is I just don’t like typing on the iPad with these programs. The app I like is Pages. It’s limited but I can create a better looking document with it than I can in MS Word (obviously due to my skill set in MS Office). I actually wish there was an iWorks version for the PC. It’s much more like the Microsoft Works that has more than enough functions for me. Eventually, I feel the ultimate solution is Google Docs and having everything in the cloud.
Note taking – This has been where my major concentration has been. One problem whatever I use has to sync with the PC side. I have been trying an app called Mobilenoter which syncs with OneNote on the PC. Now the iPad version is very limited in function but one thing it’s got going for it is that it syncs very well with my iPad, iPhone and PC. My goal has always been to be able to review my notes where ever I was or whenever I found I had the time. Having the notes on the iPhone has been great but trying to get the notes in hasn’t been fruitful. Even though the iphone4 allows Bluetooth keyboards to work I don’t see myself going back to the folding keyboard and Palm Pilot approach (too geeky). So if I can get decent note taking on the iPad then I think I found nirvana.

My favorite remote software is Wyse Pocket cloud. It does windows RDP and vnc. The best part is the virtual mouse that give you easy right-click, drag, even wheel scrolling. You can use it without a client helper installed on the host, but if you use the helper app, you get some additional features. The premium version now even supports video streaming and the ability to browse the file system of the remote machine without a desktop connection.

Won't be long now, we will be able to use VPN with the new JUNOS PULSE from Juniper.

It is released for the iPhone now, it does not work on iPAD yet, need new iOS.

http://kevpeterson.com/?p=403

Junos Pulse for iOS NOW AVAILABLE on the AppStore! Go get it folks!