iPad dominates Android in enterprise

Not only does Apple Inc. (AAPL) have the most succesful tablet on the market with the iPad, it’s also made significant headway in dominating the enterprise market, a sector that hasn’t been strong historically for the company. Apple is no doubt a heavyweight in the consumer space — the company relishes the success its achieved by designing products for the masses — but the iPad has effectively narrowed the increasingly invisible gap between consumer and enterprise.
Of all tablets activated by its enterprise customers during the last quarter, 95% were iPads, according to a new report from Good Technology Inc. While Google Inc.’s (GOOG) momentum with Android is undisputed on the smartphone front, there is no evidence that the same trend is happening with Android-powered tablets in enterprise or consumer channels, but particularly in enterprise. More iPads were activated during the quarter among Good’s customers than all Android tablets and smartphones combined. Following the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 was the second-most activated device overall during the quarter.
When tablet and smartphone activations are combined, iOS drove 75% of all activations and Android, which slipped a few percentage points during the quarter, grabbed the remaining 25% of all activations.
“As we saw with Android smartphones over the course of 2010, we do expect Android to narrow this huge gap in tablet activations. However, we don’t see that happening in 2011,” Good wrote in its quarterly device activations report. “The iPad 2 simply has too much momentum, especially when it comes to the large company-driven activations we are seeing in many verticals such as financial services, business and professional services, life sciences, healthcare, legal and wholesale and retail.”
The financial services vertical is driving the most iPad activations by industry, accounting for 46% of all activations — more than triple the amount of activations in any other industry, according to Good.
“To be this far into the enterprise with a product that’s only been shipping for 15 months … is actually incredible because the enterprise is much more conservative,” COO Tim Cook said during Apple’s earnings call last week.
According to Apple, the iPad is now being tested or deployed at 86% of the Fortune 500 companies and 47% of the Global 500 companies.